A gelato shop that opened its doors in Takapuna in January has been named one of the two best frozen dessert makers in the country, eight months into trading.
Joylato, founded by Esther Cai, won the Supreme Boutique Champion trophy at the New Zealand Ice Cream and Gelato Awards on Thursday night for its Blueberry Yoghurt Gelato. RNZ reported that Cai opened the small suburban shop in January, which makes it one of the newest businesses to take a top prize in the competition.
Head judge Geoff Scott said of the winning tub, “The yoghurt base was wonderfully clean, fresh and vibrant, with just the right amount of natural tang, while the blueberry complemented rather than dominated the palate.”
“It was a perfect marriage of flavours, finished with an outstanding creamy texture and mouthfeel,” Scott said.
The same blueberry yoghurt gelato did more than take the boutique title. According to the New Zealand Ice Cream Association’s list of 2026 trophy and medal winners, it was also named Gelato Champion, New to Market Champion and New Entrant Champion, which is four trophies for a single flavour. Joylato took gold medals for nine different products across the gelato, sorbet and fusion categories, including Sicilian pistachio, creme brulee, rose and lychee, salted caramel popcorn, green mango sorbet and lemon sorbet.
The other supreme title went the other way entirely, to a vanilla made at scale in the Tasman district. The association lists the Hall’s Cold Chain Logistics Supreme Champion as Open Country Motueka Creamery Mt Arthur Snowfall Vanilla, while RNZ named the winner as Motueka Creamery Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. Either way the trophy went to the Motueka brand owned by Open Country Dairy, which also makes Deep South.
“Vanilla is often regarded as the benchmark by which great ice cream is judged,” Scott said. “The flavour was rich, authentic and beautifully rounded, supported by an incredibly smooth, creamy texture and luxurious mouthfeel.”
Open Country Dairy says on its retail brands page that Motueka Creamery “brings a taste of the Tasman region to the rest of the country and beyond”, and that Deep South “has been a long-standing, trusted choice among New Zealanders since 1978”. The two supreme winners this year sit at opposite ends of the industry, one a nationally distributed supermarket brand, the other a single shop on the North Shore.
The competition itself keeps growing. FMCG Business reported on 11 August that more than 320 New Zealand made products were entered this year, up from 266 in 2025 and 235 in 2024. They were assessed across 15 categories during July by 30 food industry professionals and technical stewards working at the Manukau Institute of Technology in Auckland. Seventy nine gold medals were awarded.
Gelato was the fastest growing part of the field, with a record 52 entries, a 40 per cent increase on last year. That growth is what makes the Joylato result less of a fluke than it first appears, because the boutique end of the industry is where the new entries are coming from.
Scott, who has led the judging panel, said the overall standard held up as the field expanded. “The standard of competition continues to impress. Entries increased, reflecting the continued growth and confidence of New Zealand’s ice cream and gelato industry. The quality across the competition remained exceptionally high, while the level of creativity and technical execution reached new heights,” he said.
He also singled out how far the flavours ranged. “One of the highlights this year was the incredible diversity of flavours. Alongside beautifully executed classics, judges tasted everything from cereal milk and garlic bread gelato to exciting internationally inspired flavour combinations,” Scott said.
The entry list bears that out. Judges worked through salted lemongrass, paan kaju katli royale, black sesame soy caramel, yangmei and umeshu, ube purple rice and taro, and jasmine tea and jasmine rice, sitting alongside deliberately local jokes such as ready salted chips and kiwi onion dip, Rashuns chips, and Weetbix and brown sugar. Not all of them medalled, but Little ‘Lato’s garlic bread gelato and Rashuns chips gelato both took silver in the open creative category, and Farm House Cafe’s ready salted chips and kiwi onion dip gelato took silver in fusion.
The category trophies spread widely. Much Moore Ice Cream Co won the classic vanilla and classic flavoured ice cream titles, Kohu Road took chocolate ice cream and sorbet, and Patagonia Chocolates won both the chocolate gelato, sorbet or dairy free title and the sustainability award. Appleby Farms won the export title with a salted lemongrass ice cream, Subi and Brother won open creative with its Dulche de Letche Kheer, MooMii Gelato won the dairy free title with golden mango, CrocShake won fusion with spiced plum and pinot, New Zealand Natural won premium flavoured with Boysenberry Dream, and Deep South won the kids’ choice award with mango ripple.
For anyone keeping score at home, last year’s supreme winner was a Much Moore strawberry low fat yoghurt ice cream sold in two litre supermarket tubs for under five dollars, and the 2025 boutique title went to a liquorice gelato from Takapuna Beach Café. That makes two years running that the boutique trophy has gone to a business on Auckland’s North Shore, and this year the shop that won it had barely finished its first summer.
It is a reminder that in a country with a very large dairy industry, the thing New Zealanders argue about most happily is which small shop makes the best scoop. The full medal list runs to hundreds of products, and a good number of them are made by businesses with one or two stores.
Have you tried any of this year’s winners, or do you have a local scoop shop you think should have entered? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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