The Story Of Oppo Brothers Ice Cream
2011
We’re two brothers (Harry & Charlie) on a mission to change the way people eat by creating amazingly tasty foods that don’t compromise on health or the planet. Here's our story.
It all started in Brazil when we decided to break a record for the longest distance travelled by kite power on land. The buggies we used had no brakes and we had about two hours of kite experience between us.
It was like learning to swim by crossing the channel. We often had to drag our buggies over 30 miles through mangrove swamps, and subsequently ran out of food. This meant foraging for wild fruit and coconuts along the Brazilian coastline.
These tasted amazing and were nutritious too. That was the lightbulb moment. Why couldn’t all food be like that? What if you could indulge in sweet treats, without having loads of sugar and nasty additives?
1,000km later, we made it!
On our return, Charlie immediately got into the kitchen and didn’t leave it for two years (except to sleep on Harry’s sofa). The goal? Healthy ice cream. In other words, temptation you never need to resist.
2012
Charlie took a gamble and swapped his job for the kitchen… Creating lower calorie ice cream with no compromise on taste had never been done before and in fact plenty of 'experts told Charlie it simply couldn’t be done (which made him even more determined to prove them wrong!). Over 1,000 attempts were made that year to create the Oppo everyone knows and loves today.
2013
Following many ‘head in hands’ moments, the recipe was ready. Made from fresh meadow-grazed cow’s milk, stevia leaf and coconut oil and with a fraction of the calories and sugar found in regular ice cream. Health and indulgence had collided. Oppo-sites had attracted.
2014
Oppo was ready to bring #GoodTemptation to the nation. We launched into 117 Waitrose stores and hit the road to try and get as many people to try Oppo ice cream as possible.
2015
On Seedrs, Oppo became the fastest food and drink company to reach target through crowdfunding. The Guardian named us their start-up of the year and Charlie even went to Milan with the Prime Minister to showcase the best of British innovation!
2016
Tennis champion Andy Murray tried Oppo and loved it so much he invested in our ice cream dream helping to introduce Oppo to over 140K people! We also very proudly won our first Great Taste Award proving that health and taste now officially existed in one sweet spot.
2017
We created a new flavour – Colombian Chocolate and Hazelnut. We launched into Ireland and The Netherlands. On the home turf, we arrived in Sainsbury’s.
2018
Germany, Belgium, Finland and Luxembourg joined the Oppo family. We won two more Great Taste Awards and launched a new ice cream flavour Raspberry Nipple, in support of breast cancer awareness charity Coppafeel!
2019
Another year and another two Great Taste awards to add to our line up. A new product joined the #GoodTemptation family: sticks! Available in 2 flavours: Salted Caramel and Madagascan Vanilla Roasted Almonds. We also launched into the French market with the help of Franprix and Geant. We also launched our first vegan ice cream – Simply The Zest and Very Almondberry – two vegan alternatives to our regular line up, still with no compromise on taste.
2020
In 2020 we proudly launched into Tesco in the UK and Ireland and Spar in Austria – even more stores for more people to buy and enjoy the taste of Oppo! We also launched our new manifesto which formalises our commitment to changing the way people eat. So far, since launch we have saved 5.32bn calories from people’s diet or 600,000kg of fat as they chose Oppo over standard ice cream. We were also the first major ice cream brand in the UK to launch a nationwide ice cream delivery service meaning that our customers could now get hold of exclusive Oppo flavours not available in the shops such as Caramel Chocolate Crunch, Cinnamon Crunch and Maple Walnut - arriving in perfect frozen condition! Furthermore, we also give 10% of all profits to the NHS from our online store, meaning #GoodTemptation had never tasted better.
2021
At the start of the year, we welcomed a new tub member, Double Chocolate Brownie and a new stick member, Belgian Milk Chocolate & Hazelnut to the #GoodTemptation range.
We also launched a vegan version of our best-selling Double Salted Caramel Swirl so even more people could enjoy Oppo!
Alongside all this, we arrived in M&S Food in time for the Summer.
During National Ice Cream Month (July) a UK ice cream first hit the scene. We created a Limited Edition CBD-infused ice cream in collaboration with Love Hemp called Choc 'n' Chill.
In Autumn, we made our debut in Sainsbury's Local stores, launched another new tub, Cookies & Cream and also landed in Morrisons.
In November, we revealed our sustainability agenda, laying out how we're doing our part to make every scoop more sustainable. This includes, our mission to plant 60,000 trees by the end of 2023 known as PROJECT TREE60.
If that wasn't enough, we also gave away 1,000 free ice cream tub vouchers on the London Tube in celebration of #WorldKindnessDay and in December we donated 2,500 ice cream tubs to charity.
What an action-packed year 2021 was!
2022
This January saw us launch the Feel Good Fund where we gave away £1,000 each week to someone who would do good for themselves or others. You can read the winners’ stories here.
In Spring, our bitesize #GoodTemptation rolled on to the scene in the form of 12x Salted Caramel Balls at 20 calories each so you can now snack anytime to your heart’s content, treat yourself to a me-time moment, or share (but only with people you really like).
Shortly after, 2 new tub flavours arrived to join the feel good indulgence line up, Vanilla Caramel Brownie & Strawberry Cheesecake. We landed in more stores across the globe including REWE Center in Germany & Dekamarkt in the Netherlands bringing our total number of stores we’re stocked in to 6,000 across 13 countries!
Over the summer, we became a certified bona fide B Corp using our business as a force for good, doing better for both people and the planet. In August, we celebrated the news that we won 4 more Great Taste awards bringing our grand total up to 8, had a warm (not too warm of course) welcome into ASDA freezers and planted even more trees in support of our PROJECT TREE60 initiative.
As Autumn approached, we launched another brand new tub flavour Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and gave away 1,000 free tubs for World Kindness Day where you could nominate a special someone to receive a surprise little lift that’s big on flavour!
We wrapped up the year by releasing our first mini tub 4 pack, the Ultimate Caramel Collection including a new flavour Caramelised Biscuit Swirl into Morrisons and donated lots of ice cream to charities including FareShare as well as local care homes near our London office.
What a year and so much more to come in 2023! Keep your eyes peeled!
2023
Following on from suggestions made by the Oppo fans, we started the year in true feel good fashion by making a sizeable donation to Twerton and Whiteway Community Network to set up a community food fridge / freezer in town and recruit / manage volunteers to keep it well stocked and help spread the word amongst residents.
In January, the Oppo team headed to one of the City Harvest warehouses in Acton, West London, for the day to offer a helping hand to the many volunteers and staff working together for a sustainable solution to surplus food & food poverty. As a B Corp using business as a force for good, we minimise food wastage as much as we can and redistribute ice cream to City Harvest and similar organisations.
March saw us smash our PROJECT TREE60 goal early to plant 62,000 trees by the end of 2023. So we challenged ourselves to an even bigger target of 75,000!
Spring arrived and we caused a stir on April Fool’s Day by letting the world know about our new ice cream flavour Savoury Swirl! Mascarpone cheese, sundried tomatoes, oregano, salt and a basil leaf swirl. Surprisingly, many people wanted it to be real… who knows what the future holds hey?
We did however, seriously launch our mouth-wateringly delicious Caramelised Biscuit Swirl tub. Our take on the well-known little biscuit in a red wrapper you have with a coffee – you know the one 😉
Our tubs had a warm (but not too warm of course) welcome into the second largest retailer in the Netherlands, Jumbo.
We kicked off the summer with a bang and added a caramel core to our Salted Caramel Balls to make them even more indulgent and added a new flavour to the range Chocolate Hazelnut. Snacking had never been cooler.
In July, we got Oppo into the hands of thousands of people by taking stocked freezers of #GoodTemptation to Wimbledon, Clapham Common and the famous Sky Pool handing out mini tubs to enjoy in the British sunshine.
We gave our ice cream sticks a makeover with the addition of a caramel swirl and caramelised biscuit pieces in the chocolate coating and renamed them Salted Caramel Biscuit Crunch and Vanilla Almond Caramel Swirl. The summer ended on a high with our Vanilla Almond Caramel Swirl sticks winning a coveted Great Taste award bringing our total up to 9.
October came the BERRY exciting arrival of our non-ice cream frozen treats, Oppo Dipped into Ocado and Sainsbury’s! Real frozen fruit, picked at the peak of ripeness, frozen at the source for maximum freshness and dipped in a thick layer of Belgian chocolate.
November came the unbe-LEAF-able news that we'd almost doubled our tree planting goal. With 3 new trees planted for every 1 used for our packaging, Project TREE60 has not just sprouted but it's grown into a fully fledged forest of 110,000 trees.
This has proven that, when it comes to making the world a better place, we're a forest to be reckoned with 💪
Keep your eyes peeled as there's more #GoodTemptation to come than ever before in 2024!
With each new product release and country we launch into our mission is the same, to create #GoodTemptation and feel-good indulgence without compromising health or planet.
Head over to our Instagram & TikTok for more exciting launches on the horizon. You can also stay up to date with everything Oppo Brothers by subscribing to our email newsletter down below.
Happy spooning!