Viva La Yog

Fro-yo. Frozen Yoghurt. I-swear-it’s-not-ice-cream. Whatever you want to call it, the American fad-food is beginning to dominate culinary scenes across the globe. So it’s little surprise then that the latest student start-up to grace the weekly SU Market is selling exactly that. Awarded enterprise funding from Ernst and Young, for a healthy snack that feels indulgent, look no further than Viva la Yog! For less than the price of an arts centre ice-cream, every Friday for the rest of term students will be able to cool off- with a healthy conscience. Portion sizes are decent, and the yoghurt itself is made fresh on campus every week.

The masterminds behind Viva La Yog hard at work

Lifestyle met with Katie Hudson, one of the three brains behind the project, at their launch in the SU Atrium to find out more:

Explain what the project is all about, what made you start it up?

There’s three of us that set up Viva la Yog! We were all finalists. Myself and Sally Payne were in Argentina on a year abroad last year, that’s where we got the inspiration for setting this up. They sell frozen yoghurt on every street corner, much like in the US really. It’s so cheap, so healthy. We joked about it at first, before we saw the Ernst and Young social enterprise project advertised back on campus. We went along to the initial meetings and decided to enter- it just grew from there.

Tell me more about the Ernst and Young social enterprise project?

Warwick secured some funding through Ernst and Young and chose to run a social enterprise competition. They ran initial training sessions for everyone interested and we were sent away to think about what we’d like to do and what we were inspired by. We had to write a business plan and come back and pitch to them. 2 groups were given funding and we were one of them.

How did you turn the basic idea of a frozen yoghurt stall into a social enterprise project?

We all experienced first-hand the awful school dinners and packed lunches of primary and secondary state schools – people eating a whole swiss roll for their lunch, not great. We thought we’d quite like to combine it with healthy eating projects, so we work quite a lot with the most deprived schools. We’ve got one partnership with Grangehurst primary school in Coventry. We use a portion of our profits to fund one off pastry workshops, cooking classes and hour long sessions with the kids. We do tasting sessions with fruit and veg, cooking sessions using yoghurt, healthy eating lessons, we want to work with parents eventually as well. Who knows, we’re only just starting out.

You mentioned you’re all finalists, what does the future have in store for Viva la Yog!?

Next term we’ll see how it goes. We don’t know, it depends on how things go this term. We’ll see what the university want to do with it, maybe as a volunteer project through Warwick Volunteers it would work.

So what exactly are you offering and where can we find you this term?

We’ll be here every Friday at the SU market, perhaps at some more events around campus, especially as the weather should pick up this summer. We’re selling one flavour of organic yoghurt made on campus every week, with 5 different toppings that we change every week- there’s always one “naughty” topping too…

Haha, that’s the chocolate sauce then!

Yeah, we’re also trying to give away a free gift with each purchase, this week it’s badges, who knows what it’ll be next time! There will also be plenty of chances to win free yoghurt coming up as well.

Tuck into a generous portion of delicious Fro- Yo

Lifestyle’s verdict? Put down the Ben and Jerry’s and give it a go.