New Zealand-Style Ice Cream Is Coming To Sauvie Island This Summer

Last month I heard about some plans to bring New Zealand-style ice cream to Columbia Farms U-Pick on Sauvie Island starting this summer. We’ve known there’s an interest in this style of ice cream in Portland through Nico’s and Beaux Berry, and it’s great to see it poised to arrive on Sauvie Island. I spoke to Steven Hallstone—his wife’s family runs the farm where the berries are sourced and the ice cream will be sold—to learn more about this delicious project.

First, What’s New Zealand-Style Ice Cream?

New Zealand-style ice cream, AKA “real fruit ice cream,” starts with a base of vanilla ice cream and then fresh fruit—berries, in this case—is blended into it. This is done with a special machine that yields a soft serve texture with the fruit (ideally) fully incorporated into the ice cream base. It’s very tasty and refreshing—and yes, it started in NZ.

The Farm That Will Make This New Zealand-Style Ice Cream

Columbia Farms U-Pick is located on the east side of Sauvie Island next to the Columbia River. The farm opened in the 1990s and has been a part of the Portland agricultural scene since then.

“My wife farms with her parents at Columbia Farms—her parents started a u-pick business back in ’93,” Steven explained. “She started working there in 2014 and has made it her own, transforming things. It’s huge destination for u-pick berries out there.”

He told me that they grow four varieties of strawberries, six varieties of raspberries, and around six varieties of blueberries. They also grow marionberries, blackberries, and boysenberries. They are open to the public when the peonies bloom.

When it comes to the berries, though, the first of them for u-pick are usually available at the end of May or early June, depending on how the berries look. They start with strawberries, which ripen first—then there’s blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and the others. All these berries will be used to make the New Zealand-style ice cream. “Our plan is to do it with whatever is in season at the time,” said Steven.

The Berries

I asked how they will time their ice cream flavor offerings.

“When strawberries start, which will be the first crop that we get, we will just do strawberries for those few weekends,” he explained. “And then the blueberries and raspberries start to come, and after that we’ll get blackberries. But we’ll tie it to the seasons.”

And so this means the ice cream as a whole will be available from late May until probably the middle of August.

They will be doing some quality control with the berries—they’ll collect and prep them. In order to do the New Zealand-style ice cream with correct technique, they start with frozen berries, picked the day before. However—they will encourage people to sprinkle on the fresh berries they’ve collected in the fields.

The Ice Cream Base

Steven works for Tillamook as the category manager for ice cream. So it’s no surprise that they will be using Tillamook ice cream as the base—Vanilla Bean.

Coming up With the Idea

I asked Steven how they decided to do this project. “We were trying to think of things to do for the future at the farm—ways to kind of keep berries at the forefront—but to do more than just u-pick berries,” he explained. “And so we toyed around with milkshakes or ice cream with some berries on top, and discovered kind of this New Zealand-style ice cream—real fruit ice cream—and thought that it’s the perfect thing for us because it keeps the berries front and center. “

He added, “Also, it combines what my wife and I do.” It really does seem like the perfect combination for them.

“I found out about this from my friend who’s from New Zealand,” Steven explained. “So many of the berry farms out in New Zealand serve this style of ice cream and have the same machine that we imported.”

He continued, “It’s actually funny, because when we bought the machine from the importer that sells this Little Jem machine, I didn’t tell him I worked for Tillamook. But he said, ‘You know, when I sell this to people in the U.S, I tell them to use Tillamook ice cream, so you can go and look for that.'”

Steven’s Work at Tillamook

Steven has been at Tillamook for about four and a half years, and while he’s been with the company he has always been a category manager. “I started with cream cheese and butter and then moved to cheese,” he explained. “And then just within the last two months, I moved over ice cream.”

While he appreciates the various products, ice cream is his favorite. “Since I got here, it’s what I’ve wanted to work on” he said.

As an aside, I told him that I’m a huge fan of Tillamook’s jalapeño honey cream cheese spread. Steven responded, “That was one that I actually launched!” I love a good coincidence.

Pricing and Sizing and Toppings

You’ll be able to get two sizes of ice cream: a kids size and adult size (though adults can get a kids size if they want), with carrier options of a waffle cone and a cup. At one point they may make the waffle cones themselves but they will start with ones pre-made.

They are looking at a price range between five and seven dollars per serving.

And they do not plan to offer toppings (aside from you topping your ice cream with berries you’ve picked). “We’re kind of purists,” Steven remarked. “Honestly, we want the berries to shine—that’s still what we’re known for.”

Organic?

The topic of organic certification came up and I asked Steven if their berries were certified organic. I am aware from helping run a CSA for a decade how expensive certification is, not to mention the excessive amount of paperwork for products grown sustainably.

Columbia Farms U-Pick is not a certified organic farm. “We do use a range of both organic and inorganic things on the crops, but we are not certified organic,” he emphasized. “It’s a lot of a lot of work, a lot of expense.”

He continued, “Also specific for strawberries, we rotate our crops every three years for the health of the plant and the soil. But you need a three-year time frame to show that it was organic over three years.” Because of their rotational practice, certification is a challenge.

You can read about the farm’s sustainable practices on the Columbia Farms website.

Favorite Berry Flavor

I could not resist asking Steven if he and his wife have a favorite berry flavor. “Well, I think my wife and I are split,” he remarked.

He continued, “My favorite is strawberry, especially because the strawberries that we grow on the farm are significantly different than the strawberries at the grocery store. The varieties we have … especially this new strawberry that we have on our farm—it’s so sweet and delicious!

“And to go on a small tangent there, we work really closely with OSU—my wife’s on the Strawberry Commission and we know the breeder [of this new strawberry]. And we ordered a bunch of plants of this new berry, which, for a couple of years we just called ‘our experimental OSU berry.'”

But they finally found a name: It’s called the Finnito Berry. 

Finnito Berry

“The breeder who made it, his name was Chad Finn, and he was kind of a prolific berry breeder,” explained Steven. “He made a lot of the ones that people know about these days. And he actually passed away in a kind of unexpected accident before [this strawberry] was fully to market.”

He added, “So you know, it’s ‘finito.’ His final berry.”

Apparently he also bred a lot of the blackberries they have out at the farm. “There’s Columbia Star blackberries, and all sorts of others. Many that we’ve grown up using were ones that came from Chad,” he said.

Other Kinds of Food at the Farm?

Along with the ice cream, you may find popsicles that one of the other farms on Sauvie Island makes, that they sell. They also have a coffee cart from Sauvie Island Coffee Company. “She comes out and walks her cart there, and we’ll have coffee out there,” said Steven. “Usually Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is when she does that.”

Days Open for New Zealand-Style Ice Cream

They are still working out the details, but for now they are looking at two scenarios: open every day that the farm is open (which is every day). Or, they may just do weekends. When they are serving ice cream, they’ll likely be open from 10am to 5pm.

One determining factor is that they have just one machine, but they are thinking that having two would make things easier as far as increasing capacity and speed in making portions.

But when they are making cones/cups, you can walk up, get your ice cream, go sit under the gazebo, or on a picnic blanket you brought from home. This year they have a couple of new spaces where people can do that. It’s all sounds very bucolic.

The Main Message

“We’re starting this because it marries together what my wife and I do,” said Steven. “But I think that the important thing for us is that we want to have the berries at the forefront of everything we do. Because that’s what we’re most proud of: the quality of our berries.”

He added, “So with this type of ice cream, we feel we can really exemplify that and continue to have the berries be first.” Plus, it’s ice cream in the summer and that’s hard to beat.

This addition of New Zealand-style ice cream to Sauvie Island is pretty great. I look forward to stopping by and checking it out!

New Zealand-style Ice Cream at Columbia Farms [opening May 2026]
Columbia Farms U-Pick
21024 NW Gillihan Road, Portland
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