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Today, Pigott has created a more manageable life, in which she's able to enjoy some of the fruits of her labours, rather than constantly labouring. The company has refocused on wholesaling once again, and more stores are picking up the ice cream. A foray beyond Vancouver Island may be in the cards, and Pigott has had some initial, informal talks with the Business Development Bank of Canada about how they might be able to help finance that expansion.

She's back at her job as the general manager of a local hotel, but when things get crazy at the factory she's on the floor. Meanwhile, she continues to work at R&D -- creating new and interesting recipes from natural ingredients.

Things are still busy -- the Cowichan Bay parlour sells 500-800 cones on a busy day in the summer, and by January, demand was already starting to pick up this year. "But we're relaxing a bit more," says Pigott. "We're not working seven days a week. We're actually able to go for walks again."

What's in a name?
How natural is all natural?

Be careful what you call your product. Judy Pigott oversaw every ingredient that went into Udder Guy's Ice Cream, and she knew they were all natural "goodies". She even made her own fudge. So she was quite surprised when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency told her she couldn't call it "All Natural". The culprit? Milk.

It goes without saying that she was using pasteurized milk in her ice cream. The problem is that pasteurized milk is fortified. Pasteurizing removes a lot of the vitamins and nutrients we drink it for, so the carton you pick up at the local convenience store has had those vitamins added back in.

Bigger companies can buy their milk raw from the farm and pasteurize it themselves, so they can get away with using the term, all natural. Pigott couldn't.

"They said I could use those words if I got creative in how I used them," says Pigott. "But I said, I'm not playing that game. I'm either all natural or I'm not." She decided instead to call the ice cream "old fashioned".

She laughs at the brouhaha, now.

"They asked me how I knew it was old fashioned," she says. "I said, 'Look at me. I'm pushing 60. How old do you have to be to be old fashioned?'"

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