Spreading East of Sabah

The past few days and the next couple of days moving forward to the month of May has been hectic and will be even more hectic. If all goes as planned on May 2nd, 2008 our first licensee will have their soft launch of their Vedablu Shop in Tawau. The few of us are working hard now and am sure our efforts will pay off. The renovations are still on going but from the drawings and artist impression we approved, it looks really good.

Looking back, this month it will be 1 year and 6 months since our first outlet that opened in Palm Square, Kota Kinabalu. It has now come to five outlets and the new Tawau outlet. I will post an entry about the opening in Tawau in the week to come.

Zero Calorie Calorie Premium Ice Cream

Now, who wouldn't want to induldge themselves in really good ice cream without having to worry about calories?

Standing behind our Ice Cream Display Counters sometimes, I always get this common question. "How come Vedablu doesn't make zero calorie ice cream?" "I'm diabetic, what can I take?".

Let me address these questions here. No. 1 Our tagline is "fresh and natural". No. 2 I could easily produce zero calorie ice cream and put it out in the market tomorrow but I prefer not to do it because we want to honour our No. 1 rule (fresh and natural).

How to make zero calorie ice cream? Easy, replace current cane sugar in ice cream with artificial sugars. Why do Vedablu 'stubbornly' do not do this? Simply because the artificial sugars currently available in the market are aspartame or sucralose. A good web link to the side effects of these artificial sweeteners can be found here.So there it is, on one hand we can have zero calorie product but risk all the side effects mentioned. I have got some views saying that, it is the consumer who decides about their health, if they want to take aspartame, just make the product they want and give it to them. However to me, it just doesn't seem right.


Nevertheless, that does not mean that I will stop at my quest in introducing Vedablu Ice Cream with Zero Calories. Just recently, doing some research, I found an interesting sugar alternative which is all natural. It comes from the leaves of the stevia rebaudiana plant. It is funny that I never heard about this natural sugar replacement until a friend of mine mentioned about it. Then I further heard that this plant was planted vastly in Indonesia. This natural sugar alternative which originates from Paraguay has been apparently used for centuries with no known side effects. Infact it even has some additional health benefits. Read about the company in Malaysia mass manufacturing stevia here. I was so excited that I decided to blog about it here. Although I am not diabetic or on a low carbs diet, I know how hard it is to resist something sweet sometimes.

Stevia plant-Wikipedia

I shall continue to do further research on Stevia and do some product developments using this natural sugar alternative. If using Stevia in its natural state does not affect the quality and tastes of our products, who knows? Soon we shall introduce to you a few new sugar free ice cream and sorbet flavours.

Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008!

Finally, after the long festive seasons I can come back to my office and do some clearing up. Also to finally update this blog of which I swear to update more often. Work has been crazy, but of course our sales for the Month of December speaks for itself. I would like to thank all our Vedablu customers especially those loyal fans for the continued support. We certainly try our very best to bring you only the freshest and delicious tasting ice cream in town.

To all the wonderful and so hard working staff at Vedablu, thank you for your passion and commitment to grow with us.

There is so much to say if I reflect on 2007. In Business we have achieved so much. Since Vedablu begun with its first kiosk in October 2006, we have now grown to 5 outlets in 2007. 2007 also saw us joining all the events and festivals in Kota Kinabalu as part of our marketing and branding awareness campaign. As quoted by a few people "You are everywhere!" and "We thought of going to Vedablu but Vedablu came to us!". It was not easy, but we as a team at Vedablu, we achieved more then we ever dreamed of. In 2008 our aim is to continue keeping our customers happy by continually improving and increasing our product lines. If all goes well, you will see Vedablu at 1 Borneo by March 2008 and at the new KKIA terminal upon completion. Perhaps we will also spread our wings to Kuala Lumpur by the third quarter. 2008 will be an exciting year for us...and we are proud to say we are a SABAHAN based company. Go SABAH!

FAQ On Vedablu - Part 1

Well since this blog is new, I haven't had people or customers asking me questions here but they often ask me personally or ask my outlet staff from time to time the questions below. Its been interesting to read about Vedablu Reviews also on other blogs. I honestly appreciate these reviews and comments.

Ice cream for me is just not ice cream but I think generally we Malaysians have not adopted the 'Ice Cream Culture' yet although I know some of you have =) Most of us though who enjoy ice cream will know the difference between industrial ice cream and premium or super premium ice cream. However for those who don't will immediately recognize the difference on their first taste. I will attempt to address or answer 2-3 of these questions in the simplest manner in every post I have on "FAQ on Vedablu".

Question 1: Is Vedablu imported ice cream brought in on Franchise?
No. Vedablu Premium Ice cream is manufactured in KK daily and sent to our 5 outlets on a daily basis. This way we can deliver to you only the freshest ice cream and not ice cream which are 6 months to 2 years old. We manufacture them in small batches at our factory with imported italian machines. Only italian machines can deliver low overrun (in lay man terms overrun is % of air) ice cream.

We developed the Vedablu brand ourselves (also which is being trademarked) and each outlet has the same concept of colours and design.


Question 2: Why so expensive if made locally?
At RM5.60 per scoop (100-120g) it would seem that we are expensive compared to other industrial ice cream. Examples of industrial ice cream are for those that sell at RM6.50-12.00 per litre in all supermarkets. Vedablu however is a premium ice cream. We do not use artificial flavours, colouring and preservatives. As an Example, our Strawberry ice cream is made with real strawberries imported from France. There is no colouring to make it look bright pink. So point number one, our cost of making our ice cream is higher because we use all natural ingredients and most of them are imported. Point number2, our ice cream is more solid then industrial ice cream. Of which industrial ice creams contain 80% - 120% overrun (percentage of air whipped into ice cream to create volume), ours stands at 25% to 35%. So you are actually consuming more solids as compared to air. Point number 3, although we are made locally all our machines are imported to manufacture you the type of quality you are getting. Our total investment of just one set of machine could easily buy you a semi detach house in KK. We have 3 sets of machines to maintain.

Given the 3 points above we are still not as expensive as compared to the imported premium ice creams available at our supermarkets. For one scoop of ice cream (100g) you pay half the price and still get fresh, creamy and all-natural premium ice cream. Can you ask for more then that?

An Achievement

I never thought I would have figured out how to add elements and widgets on blogspot! It took me 3 hours to add the adverlets, weblog and Header display picture. I took the longest time to do some graphic editing on my header display picture. The picture was initially too large. Now its the right width but not really the right length. Not that I couldn't have picked a nother picture.

This picture is special because this was taken without my knowledge by my BF who stood perhaps 15feet away from me with his Nikon D200. It was the opening of our first premium ice cream kiosk and I did the scooping myself that day. He came to surprise me on the opening day. It was probably after 1/2 hour or roughly 50 shots before I realized he was there. We had a huge crowd that day of opening but he made my day.

The Serenity Prayer

Its lunch time and I am sitting in my office. My other staff asked me to go along for lunch but today I don't really feel like eating. Instead for the pass 15 mins I have been writting down my next 6 months life action plan. When I finished I did a silent prayer to ask the Lord to give me strength to do all the things I have listed down. Probably if there is anyone reading this now, you would probably be wondering what is the big deal. Well, the story will unfold itself as I fill this blog with more of who I am. Anyway, I looked up and saw my coffee mug. There was a prayer painted on it and for once I felt that this prayer summed up all my emotions and all that I needed to get through the next 6 months and do what was needed for myself. I want to give credit to the creator of this prayer but the name wasn't painted on my coffee cup. I will paste his name here once I find out.

THE SERENITY PRAYER:

God, grant me the SERENITY

to accept the things I cannot change,

the COURAGE

to change the things I can,

and the WISDOM

to know the difference.

Why does this prayer mean so much to me at this time? There are alot of things which I cannot change right now but I know with patience and time things will get better.

My first entry - why blog?

I wanted a separate blog from friendster, instead of re-doing my blog in friendster because a blog is like a closet, you need to get organized (otherwise you don't know whats to wear), I thought why not start a new blog? I have to confess and those of you reading this will see I am truly a newbie at blogging.

All my life, I have kept a diary /journal. Writting has always been a solace and has been very therapeudic for me. So, why not blog? This way, if any other persons come across my thoughts and writtings here and may want to drop a comment or share or discuss they are more then welcome to do so.

Was reading alot of blogging guides (I am really a newbie), and they mentioned that a blog must have a certain theme or catch. I have been thinking about my theme and can't think of any that is interesting enough. One thing that has been on my mind alot is that I am not happiest with my life right now (don't get me wrong, I know that I am trully blessed and am having a better life compared to millions of other people on this earth) and would like to change my life to how I always have dreamed it to be. Its just this feeling that know I can do better, and being 26 I don't think I have not much time to waste. It takes courage to go against alot of people to do what you want. Maybe for a start this blog's theme would be "My Journey" to achieving that. It may not be interesting at all, but this is the first step for doing something for myself.