When Nicole Foster and her husband, Dwight Campbell, were looking for ice cream for their lactose-intolerant son, the products available on the market were underwhelming.

So they took matters into their own hands and collaborated to create Cajou Creamery, a Black-owned plant-based ice cream company that uses handcrafted cashew milk ice cream and international flavours to appeal to audiences.

“We started making handcrafted cashew milk ice cream for our kids,” Nicole Foster, co-founder of Cajou Creamery, told VegOut in an interview. “I was an attorney working in national health policy concerned about all the artificial tastes, textures, and ingredients in the dairy-free ice creams that were commercially available. Also, I found the flavours boring — how many chocolates and vanilla can you have?

Foster added that she took a raw food chef certification course and brought home a rich cashew and almond milk ice cream recipe. Her husband, a chef, worked with her to perfect a recipe he’d enjoy using plant-based ingredients.

“…When we got it right, we would send our children along with homemade pints to birthday parties. The pints became so popular that orders began to pile up. I seized the opportunity to create a line of handcrafted cashew milk ice cream in culturally curious flavours so communities of colour could feel seen and represented for the first time on grocery shelves,” Foster said.

Today, Cajou Creamery sells its products at select Whole Foods stores in the mid-Atlantic and other retailers from Maine to South Carolina.

It also sells its products online and regularly appears at The Market at Montebello — a monthly lakeside market in Baltimore.

The dairy-free ice creams are made in small batches and include international flavours such as Baklava (pistachio and coconut), Horchata (vanilla and cinnamon), Kulfi (coconut and cardamom), Cortadito (coffee), Mexican Cacao (chocolate), Cheesecake (vanilla and blueberry), and Sweet Potato (Southern pie).