The Princess Royal celebrates Equi’s ice cream’s fundraising success with visit

The Equi family has been making ice cream since 1922 and has raised a total of £34,051 for Maggie’s Lanarkshire over the last five years. Maggie’s provides free cancer support and information in centres across the UK.

The Princess Royal was welcomed to the new ice cream factory by David Equi, Managing Director of Equi’s Ice Cream, who said: “Maggie’s is a charity which will always be close to my heart after my father passed away from cancer in 1985, aged 59, and my family and I saw first hand the amazing work they do. It was truly an honour to meet The Princess Royal today - we’ve been proud to share our ice cream with generations of our customers over the years and it was a privilege to let HRH The Princess Royal taste it.”

Princess Anne spent the afternoon visiting the ice cream producer and was able to try a bespoke flavour, Salted Caramel Cookie Dough.

This special flavour was developed by the Mackellar family after their successful bid at a Maggie’s Lanarkshire fundraising event. The family was able to tour the ice cream factory and take part in a Willy Wonka-style tasting experience before donning lab coats and hairnets to create their own flavour.

Speaking about the experience, Laura Mackellar said: “We grew up visiting Equi’s ice cream parlour in Hamilton and picking up their famous Double Cream Vanilla Ice Cream from our local supermarket so we jumped at the chance to bid for a once in a lifetime experience with proceeds going to such a good cause. We are incredibly grateful to have met The Princess Royal, who was there to celebrate all of the amazing work that is being done for Maggie’s.”

Four generations of the Equi family have been producing ice cream since 1922 with flavours like Scottish Tablet, Isle of Skye Sea Salt and Caramel and Scottish Raspberry Sorbet sold across the country.

Last year, Equi’s Ice Cream celebrated their centenary by moving into a state of the art, purpose built ice cream factory in Rutherglen. The 10,000 sq foot premises is designed to quadruple the volume of their Great Taste Award winning ice cream in the most sustainable way possible.

Today Equi’s Ice Cream is sold via more than 300 independent retailers across Scotland. Major outlets include Asda, the Co-op and Morrisons and wholesalers such as Brakes.