Yorvale Ice Cream: Yorkshire couple selling homemade ice cream for 37 years tried by Queen Elizabeth II
A husband and wife team said “true Yorkshire grit and determination” has helped them run a successful ice cream business from the county for more than 37 years - even tried by the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Husband and wife team Ian and Lesley Buxton first got into farming when they leased land in York from the council in 1984.
Ian, from Boroughbridge, was raised in the country and helped on farms every weekend for a bit of pocket money and his passion for farming grew since then.
When he was 16 years old he attended Askham Bryan College to study animal husbandry but it wasn’t until he and his wife got married that he was able to pursue his dreams as a farmer with their own land.
In 1989, they decided to add value to their farm by using some of their cows’ milk to produce their own ice cream.
Since then, the business has gone from strength to strength and lasted more than 37 years - including a collaboration with York Races for a Queen Elizabeth II visit, where her majesty sampled a caramelised onion ice cream.
Despite the cost of living affecting their business, the husband and wife team have recently diversified by adding a ‘doggy ice cream’ without compromising on the quality of their product.
“My husband has always wanted to be a farmer, he always wanted to milk cows,” Mrs Buxton said.
“What that meant to us was that we couldn’t produce any more milk, so by turning milk into ice cream we added value. All of the herds are really big now.
“There was a little bit of a loop hole in what were the milk marketing regulations for the milk that was produced on the farm.
“But if you made ice cream, any of your surplus milk, instead of throwing it away, you could make it into ice cream.
“We wanted it to be a wholly natural product made from cow's milk. We started selling at local shows on a weekend and we quickly got a reputation for quality.
“We bought the farm in 1999 from the council and since then we’ve just grown and grown,the factory is three times the size it was back in 2000 and we are still farming.”
In 2005, the Queen even tried the ice cream at a York Races event.
Mrs Buxton said it was a proud moment for the business.
“It took some true Yorkshire grit and determination,” Mrs Buxton said.
“Along the way we’ve done all sorts of different things, we’ve worked at York Races and produced ice cream for the Queen there.
“We had to deliver the products in the early morning; [we made] caramelised onion ice cream - served with beef, tomato and basil sorbet, and mango frozen yogurt.”
There are certain ice cream flavours that are the most popular, Mrs Buxton said.
“The most popular, which is the most boring, is vanilla but everybody understands vanilla and it goes with so many things and because we’re largely in food service, that’s an easy one that nobody would ever not have in the freezer to serve,” she said.
“Then strongly behind [vanilla] are the salted caramels, double chocolate chips, caramel honeycomb, rum and raisin, mint chocolate chip and strawberry; they’re all the main flavours that everybody recognises.”
Just like with other businesses, Yorvale has faced many challenges over the decades but there are things the pair have done to keep it afloat.
“We’ve never borrowed a lot of money, we’ve only expanded as we’ve been able to afford to do so, so that in itself was a challenge because it’s limiting,” she said.
“But we didn’t want to get into big debt because we were only small and we wanted to make sure that we were secure.
“That has been stable for us because whilst we’ve had a lot of depression, a lot of people don’t have the same amount of money to spend, we’ve always held tight because we’ve worked together to keep the businesses going and that’s been a real success for us.”
Mrs Buxton admits that they are facing challenges now with the rising cost of bills and ingredients but maintaining quality is always their priority.
“I think the other thing about producing a product is that it’s very difficult when costs are skyrocketing,” she said.
“We’re going through a bit of a depression now because everything is going up significantly.
“You see the increases at the supermarkets at the end and we are paying higher prices for stuff as well.
“But we’ve never made the product any different, we stuck to the original recipe, never changed anything to compromise the price. It’s value for money and I think that’s kept us afloat right the way through.
“The success in feeding our many happy customers has led to us entering the dog food market with the launch in 2025 of ‘Pawvale’ a dog ice cream.
“It is slightly different from the rest of the dog ice cream as it is flavoured with lamb or chicken.”