About Us

our history & philosophy

Serendipity is a family business which was started in 1966 by my mother, Alix Mandelson. She started making her own ice cream at home because, at the time, the most exotic ice cream available in Sydney was Neapolitan – and she is allergic to chocolate!

Alix was a pioneer of the gourmet ice cream market, making daring flavours such as Maple Walnut, Pistachio, and Rum & Raisin. These days, those flavours are considered standard, but we still make daring flavours to challenge the ice cream world and your taste buds. These flavours include Durian, Halva or Licorice ice creams, and Blood Orange, Gin & Tonic, or Passionfruit & Chilli sorbets. In fact, at any given time of the year, we keep over 100 flavours in stock.

Richard & I still make our products in small batches and use the best natural ingredients. We are constantly re-inventing the wheel in terms of flavours, but always with exacting standards in mind. Our products are generally denser than most commercial brands, and are lower in sugar, but the main criterion is taste.

We operate a HACCP Food Safety program certified by the NSW Food Authority which has given our premises "A" rating; we also have a very considerable range of products with Halal certification.

Sarah Mandelson, Partner & CEO