Webzine
Nenia Redefines the Standard for Organic Ice Cream
2025.09.08
Earning Praise as the “Ultimate in Ingredients”
Nenia offers many eco-friendly products worth boasting about, but among them, its organic ice cream truly stands out. One online marketplace that carries Nenia products even showered it with praise, calling it “Nenia Organic Ice Cream, the ultimate in ingredients.”
So what makes the ingredients so exceptional that it earned the title of “ultimate”?
▲ An employee at Nenia’s partner ice cream manufacturing facility presents freshly made strawberry ice cream on site. (Photo = Nenia)
Making ice cream without synthetic chemical additives may sound almost impossible—but Nenia has achieved what once seemed unattainable. The journey wasn’t easy. Countless trials and errors, along with a long and challenging development process, were required before the product could finally be realized. In this issue, we share that special story.
To understand the process of making ice cream, it’s important to know the concept of “overrun.” During production, the mixture is churned so that air is incorporated. As the volume increases with the added air, it is then rapidly cooled using refrigeration equipment. This increase in volume caused by the mixture blending with air is what’s called overrun. Typically, about 40–100% of air is introduced when making ice cream.
For example, with 1 liter of base mix, if the overrun is 100%, you end up with 2 liters of ice cream. If the overrun is 40%, you get 1.4 liters. In other words, even with the same amount of raw ingredients, the final volume of ice cream varies depending on the level of overrun.
▲ A glimpse of the process of making Nenia Organic Ice Cream (Photo = Nenia)
In general, ice cream with over 10% milk fat and an overrun of 50% or lower is considered premium ice cream. Nenia’s organic ice cream contains 10% milk fat with an overrun of 40%. While milk fat strongly influences flavor, overrun has a major impact on smoothness. That said, overrun alone doesn’t determine texture—higher milk fat not only enhances flavor but also adds to the creaminess.
There are also classification standards for frozen desserts such as ice cream, ice milk, and sherbet. Products with more than 6% milk fat are classified as ice cream; with more than 2% milk fat, as ice milk; with more than 2% non-fat solids, as sherbet; and with less than 2% non-fat solids, as frozen confections.
Nenia’s Challenge: Could It Be Done Without Additives?
Making ice cream without chemical additives was, in many ways, a bold challenge. In typical ice cream production, additives such as stabilizers and thickeners (like xanthan gum or guar gum) play important roles—they keep the ice cream from melting too quickly and help ensure that the overrun remains consistent during production. Nenia, however, chose not to use such chemical additives, relying instead on the highest-quality natural ingredients to achieve both flavor and texture.
▲ Nenia Organic Ice Cream Set – Three Flavors (Vanilla, Strawberry, Chocolate) (Photo = Nenia)
Nenia first brought its more refined “Organic Ice Cream” to the market in 2018, following its earlier distribution of non-GMO ice cream made without synthetic additives. To look back on that journey, we spoke with Jiyoon Kim, Deputy Manager of Nenia’s Product Development Team, who was part of the team that developed the product.
Interview: Jiyoon Kim, Deputy Manager, Product Development Team, Nenia
The Birth of Nenia Ice Cream
Q. Is it really possible to make ice cream without synthetic additives?
A. In the early stages, it was thought to be nearly impossible to produce ice cream without stabilizers or thickeners. Normally, thickeners are essential for creating a smooth texture when air is incorporated, and they also prevent ice cream from melting too quickly.
The bigger challenge, though, was the sharp decline in productivity. To overcome this, Nenia replaced synthetic additives with liquid egg yolk. This approach demanded a much more delicate production process than usual and required a great deal of time and effort to refine.
Nenia Ice Cream – Ingredients for 3 Flavors
Vanilla Ice Cream
(97% organic-certified ingredients)
- Organic milk
- Organic cream
- Organic sugar, organic skim milk powder
- Organic agave syrup, liquid egg yolk
- Whey
- Oligofructose (organic)
- Organic vanilla bean
Chocolate Ice Cream
(97.5% organic-certified ingredients)
- Organic milk
- Organic cream
- Organic sugar
- Organic cocoa powder
- Organic skim milk powder
- Oligofructose (organic)
- Organic agave syrup
- Whey
Strawberry Ice Cream
(98.7% organic-certified ingredients)
- Organic milk (domestic)
- Organic cream (milk: domestic)
- Organic strawberry jam (domestic)
- Organic sugar
- Organic skim milk powder
- Liquid egg yolk
- Organic agave syrup
Q. Do you have any behind-the-scenes stories from the product development process?
A. I remember the time we were developing the vanilla ice cream. For Nenia Organic Vanilla Ice Cream, we use organic vanilla bean powder, but because it’s so light, it had a tendency to float to the top during mixing. To keep the ingredients evenly blended, we had to stir the mixture constantly throughout production. In fact, Nenia may be the only company in Korea making vanilla ice cream this way.
If we had used synthetic emulsifiers or stabilizers, the problem could have been solved easily. But we were committed to our principle of manufacturing without chemical additives, so we turned instead to domestic egg yolk. It made the process more labor-intensive, but it also allowed us to succeed in creating ice cream that is both safe and delicious. You could say that every single product carries with it a great deal of care and dedication.
Q. Do you really use no flavoring at all?
A. That’s right. In our three varieties—strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla—we use neither synthetic flavorings nor natural flavorings. The strawberry flavor comes from a generous amount of organic strawberry jam, for which we carefully adjusted the ratios several times to achieve the right balance. The chocolate flavor comes from organic cocoa powder, and the vanilla flavor comes from organic vanilla beans. In other words, we stay true to the raw ingredients themselves.
These days, many products labeled “strawberry flavor” or “vanilla flavor” rely heavily on added flavorings. But at Nenia, we let the natural ingredients speak for themselves. This means we use more raw materials and our production costs are higher—but in return, we deliver a flavor that is healthier, more authentic, and deeply satisfying.
Q. Does ice cream not have an expiration date?
A. Under the Food Sanitation Act, ice cream is required to display only the manufacturing date, not a separate expiration date.
The reason is that ice cream is typically stored at -18℃ or lower (often -25℃), which means its quality hardly changes during storage. In addition, the raw ingredients are strictly regulated under food safety laws, so even with long-term storage, there are no issues with safety.
On the trail of organic ice cream production
The Story of Donggreen, a Century-Old Company in Gangwon Province
▲ Donggreen CEO, Ilho Oh (Photo = Nenia)
We visited Donggreen, the partner company that manufactures Nenia’s organic ice cream. Located in a quiet rural village in Gangneung, the factory is surrounded by farmland and farmhouses, with plum trees planted along the roadside—an impressive sight. Founded in November 1994 as a supplier of ice cream and frozen desserts, Donggreen is now a mid-sized enterprise with annual sales of about 40 billion KRW and around 100 employees.
We toured the production line where Nenia’s organic ice cream is made. Because it is a food manufacturing facility, the entry procedures were extremely strict. To prevent contamination, we had to wear two layers of sanitary caps, put on a clean suit, thoroughly sanitize our hands, pass through an air shower to remove dust, and go through a sterilization room before entering. Inside, the facilities were automated, but every step of the process still required human oversight.
Donggreen holds a special place in this journey, having developed Nenia ice cream together with Nenia through repeated trials and challenges. During the factory tour, we spoke with the production department’s deputy manager and the CEO, and also conducted a written interview with the head of the company’s in-house research institute.
The name “Donggreen” dates back to the company’s founding. With its factory located in the east (Dong) of Gangneung, and to embody the vision of green growth, the founders initially chose the English name “EAST GREEN.” However, since English registration was not permitted for business names at the time, they settled on Donggreen as the official name.
The reason for establishing the factory in Gangneung goes back to the founder’s history. He once ran a Lotte Samkang dealership there, and during the summer vacation seasons of the 1990s, he witnessed severe shortages of ice cream along Korea’s East Coast. Believing this presented a strong business opportunity, he decided to build an ice cream factory. It also helped that his hometown was Donghae, with Gangneung close by.
When asked about the challenges of developing Nenia’s ice cream, the head of Donggreen’s research institute explained:
“In ice cream production, the standard practice is to use stabilizers and emulsifiers. But because Nenia’s company policy prohibits synthetic additives, we had to carefully select natural-based ingredients and then conduct countless repeated experiments to find the optimal combinations. It took a very long time before the formulations could pass sensory testing.”
Since creating products for Nenia with eco-friendly specifications, Donggreen has been working to expand the production of ice cream without synthetic additives.
Nenia Web Magazine Editorial Team
May 12, 2025
