Ben & Jerry’s Chunkfest 2013

By: Angela Low

Singapore got a little cooler last Saturday, both metaphorically and literally, with the largest ice cream festival at Marina Bay Sands. The pools of mud that covered the festival grounds were the result of consistent flash rains. However, that did not affect the atmosphere at Ben & Jerry’s ChunkFest this year. Come what may, ice cream remains the perfect remedy. On that afternoon, ice cream became cause for celebration too.

Promising to be a little weird and a lot fantastic, Ben & Jerry’s launched a quirky new ice cream flavour, the Couch Potato, which is what we will become after having a few spoons of it. Made up of vanilla ice cream with salty caramel coupled with clusters of chocolate-coated potato chip, the concoction might seem a little weird, but it was to die for.

The event boasted an ice cream buffet of 18 flavours (including Couch Potato), of which 13 were flown in from the US exclusively for a day. Some of the crowd favourites were the White Russian (coffee ice cream with coffee liqueur), and Red Velvet Cake.

Accompanying the various gaming and merchandise booths were the stage performances by Fluffy Darkness, and Renny & Clarence. While it may seem like an event dedicated only to ice cream, it also showcased several local social enterprises like Kerbside Gourmet, Project Happy Feet, Blessings in a Bag, and Chris’ Café @ The Hub.

At the highly anticipated “Vermonster Challenge”, contestants in teams of four had to down 20 scoops of ice cream in the shortest space of time to win a year’s worth of ice cream. This year’s contest saw a record-breaking timing of 18 seconds!

The ChunkFest came to a close with its first-ever outdoor MOOvie screening of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, which came with MOOvie packs, consisting of a mat, flip flops, vouchers etc. So, if you missed out on ChunkFest 2013, you can still get your hands on the Couch Potato in stores right now.