China’s traditional White Rabbit sweets star in Los Angeles ice cream
- Lunar New Year novelty flavour using iconic Chinese confectionery sells out in hours
- Shanghai sweet maker said to be ‘delighted’
China’s famous White Rabbit brand of sweets was a hit in Los Angeles over the recent Lunar New Year when an ice cream maker launched a new product based on the iconic milk-based confectionery.
Shanghai manufacturer Guan Sheng Yuan – which has been making White Rabbit sweets since 1959 – asked its agent to investigate reports that an ice cream was being sold in the US west coast city using packaging similar to its famous White Rabbit brand sweets.
In fact the ice cream maker Wanderlust Creamery, together with the food website Foodbeast, had launched a White Rabbit ice cream – using dissolved pieces of the sweets, including their edible rice paper wraps – as a special Lunar New Year treat for its customers.
The new ice cream, sold using packaging which resembles the signature White Rabbit wrapping, was such a hit in Los Angeles that the company extended its sales period from its planned nine days up to the end of March.
Jon-Patrick Lopez, Wanderlust’s co-founder, was quoted by the American lifestyle portal foodandwine.com last week as saying that there were about 1.3 pieces of White Rabbit candy in every scoop of the ice cream.
Wanderlust sold 50 gallons of White Rabbit ice cream from February 1 to 20. Then 50 more gallons were sold from February 21 to 22 as word spread. On February 24 alone, Wanderlust sold its remaining 39 gallons of White Rabbit ice cream – nearly 1,000 scoops – within eight hours according to the report.