Eight tonnes of strawberries, 180,000 cones: What goes into the Ekka’s famous sundaes

3 months ago 24

As the Ekka nears, in a room somewhere at the Brisbane Showgrounds, refrigerated containers hold some incredibly valuable ingredients – the components that make up the beloved strawberry sundae.

Showground staff have worked for months to source everything for their stall. That includes ordering nearly 200,000 ice-cream cones.

The strawberry sundae was first introduced in the 1950s and has since become synonymous with the Ekka.

“There are about 180,000 cones, it’s about eight tonnes of fresh strawberries that we’ve got coming in, thousands of litres of Lick Ice Cream will go into it, as well as the fresh cream that will go on top. It’s a huge operation,” RNA chief executive Brendan Christou said.

Lick Ice Cream supplied an estimated 25,000 litres of strawberry ice-cream and 15,000 litres of white ice-cream – all handmade in Brisbane.

“Believe it or not, it’s all handmade locally in Brisbane and production commences in early May every year. This is our 15th year of supplying to the Ekka,” Lick chief executive Simon West explained.

This will be the first year the RNA is running the food stall after the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation handed over the reins.

“It’s a real logistical effort, and we’ve got a whole team of food and beverage staff who are doing that for us this year, and it’s going to be massive,” Christou said.

While the sundae itself remained unchanged – “the recipe is exactly the same, and it’s what people have grown to love” – how it would be served would be upgraded.

Visitors could now pre-order sundaes online and skip the queue.

The ingredients of Lick Ice Cream’s strawberry sundae scoop are kept tightly under wraps.

When this masthead spoke with Christou, nine days out from the Ekka opening its gates, about 15,000 ice-creams had already been sold. That number was expected to double by the time the show kicked off on August 9.

To avoid a “rare” disaster from years gone by, when they ran out of Lick’s unique strawberry ice-cream, everything was being done to ensure a smooth transition.

“We want the last strawberry sundae served at the show to be as good as the first one,” Christou said. “That’s an important part of the Ekka now, and we just want to make sure that experience is great.”

That meant that when the gates closed each evening at 9pm, teams would zip around the showgrounds, replenishing stock levels for the next day – a task that was almost impossible to complete during the day due to the crowds.

Christou described it as a “really big logistical exercise”, but one that was the bread and butter of his expanded team.

Additionally, at the day’s end, any leftover food that couldn’t be used would be repurposed with the help of OzHarvest.

For those who hadn’t yet tasted the beloved dessert, Christou described it as “the best ice-cream you’ll ever taste”, although he admitted his bias.

“If people have only ever tasted normal supermarket-level ice-cream, this is next level ... It is really something special and definitely worth doing at least once, and then what happens is you can’t just have one.

“I’ll consume a few over the nine days of the show … it’s really important I know our product,” he laughed.

“It has been done in other states, other royal shows have tried to introduce the strawberry sundae, and it just hasn’t worked, so it really is a unique Queensland and Ekka thing.”

Strawberry sundae pre-sale bundles of four are on sale for $25 online, with a single sundae costing $6.80 online or in-person.

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