
Products made with the ingredient can be labeled as vegan and lactose-free. The Emeryville, California-based company chose to use fungi because they have a long history of safety in making ingredients in many foods on the market today, and because microflora are particularly good at producing animal proteins. The product’s low carbon footprint (approximately 34% lower when compared to traditional dairy ice cream) is, in part, made possible by its use of animal-free whey protein from Perfect Day, which created the independently-run Brave Robot Ice Cream enterprise in 2020.įounded in 2014 by Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi, Perfect Day utilizes fermentation to create proprietary “flora-made” dairy protein. The brand is conducting an independent Life Cycle Assessment, and initial findings of the study show that the absolute carbon footprint for its ice cream pint is 0.76 kgCO2e, or the equivalent of driving 1.9 miles in a passenger car.


The Urgent Company’s Brave Robot Ice Cream brand will be the first dairy ice cream sold in USA grocery stores to publish carbon footprint information on product packaging, as pints make their way into freezer cases across the nation this summer.
