Meet the ANU graduate scooping out climate-friendly sweet treats

When Maddi Easterbrook graduated with a law degree from The Australian National University (ANU), creating her own business that championed the future of sustainable food wasn’t what she had on her agenda.

Fast forward to the summer of last year, her small business, Future Swirl has melted itself (pun intended) permanently into the Canberra food scene.

As the name would suggest, Easterbrook’s brainchild doesn’t just look to the future of sustainable and locally sourced oat milk ice cream – -she’s bringing it to life.

Classic flavours including the revered oat milk soft serve – -the first of its kind in Australia until proven otherwise – – are topped with blends of hard choc drizzle, warm biscoff and strawberry coulis that not only sound drool-worthy, but importantly, don’t compromise on taste.

Easterbrook – -who balances her business with her career in journalism — was inspired to create this unique gastronomical experience after spotting a lactose-free gap in the market.

“I went after the plant-based ice cream market in particular because, at the time, I didn’t like the options available. I was missing a really creamy, neutral, true vanilla ice cream alternative,” Easterbrook says.  

According to the UN’s climate change panel, plant-based alternatives create empowering pathways for consumers to help tackle climate change.

In fact, a new study has shown a ‘flexitarian’ diet could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help restrict global heating to 1.5 degrees.

The plant-based milk industry plays a big role in this, with experts finding dairy to be three times more emissions-intensive than plant-based milk.

“One of the single biggest ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to adopt a plant-based diet,” Easterbrook says.

“That is something I learnt studying corporate sustainability at ANU.

“In the course I was studying, we used this footprint calculator. I was playing around with it to see how I could lower it. It quickly became obvious that the biggest way to reduce that was to eat plant-based foods.

“People can have a negative attitude towards vegan lifestyles. But I realised that to overcome that attitude you just have to make a product that people want because it tastes better.”

Amid the growing demand to bring sustainable alternatives to our tastebuds, it’s no surprise that Future Swirl quickly took off.

“Having such positive interactions with customers and going to these different events, which were so well received, has been really rewarding.

“We’ve also had so many women with babies or children who have a milk allergy, and specifically a milk protein allergy. What has been so nice is that my product is sometimes the first time a child is trying ice cream,” says Easterbrook.

But behind these sweet moments lives the bitter aftertaste of being a young woman entering a gendered environment.

While Easterbrook was able to lean on her law degree to navigate what she describes as “condescending” conversations, at times she faced invisible biases that flew under her radar.

“I didn’t expect to, but I have, unfortunately, felt like I have had negative interactions with people because of my gender and age,” she says. 

“When I was younger, I definitely viewed the world in more black-and-white terms, and I thought any discrimination I faced as a woman would be really easy to call out.

“But as I’ve gotten older, and particularly as I’ve entered the business world, I have realised that’s very subtle and really unexpected. You can often be too on the back foot to do anything about – often you walk away and be like, ‘did that just happen?’”

Despite these challenges, Easterbrook is optimistic about change.

“There is a real push in the community to see more young women in business. I’ve had a lot of support from the Canberra Innovation Network — they have really championed me.”

“Connecting with other women, who don’t even have to be in your industry but are like-minded, to create a community makes a big difference.”

Future Swirl is currently closed so that Easterbrook can focus on the development of her oat milk ice cream take-home tubs. Once distributed to local grocers (and when the sun returns), she hopes all Canberrans will be enticed to give them a ‘swirl’.

“We’ve had such big demand that we have started to leave the ACT more frequently to service Melbourne and Sydney,” Easterbrook says.

“We are also focused on manufacturing our take-home tubs. Within the next two weeks, we’ll hopefully get them into stores here in Canberra.

“Canberra has such a fantastic scientific community that I’m also keen to tap into and make plant-based products more delicious than dairy alternatives. I want to grow Future Swirl into a big enough company to really pioneer sustainability in the food space.”