11.6.2026 | Shopping

Ice Cream Newcomers in Estonia Put to the Test

Text Mikko Savikko
Photos Tom Röllich

The panel tastes the winning banana-and-chocolate cream ice cream produced by Balbiino.

Estonia’s best-known ice cream brand is Onu Eskimo, or “Uncle Eskimo”. The name comes from Evald Rooma, who lived to the age of 106 and founded the Eskimo Ice Cream Factory in Tartu in 1934. He was also known for his work in the confectionery and culinary fields.

Today, ice cream under the Onu Eskimo name is produced by Balbiino, a company established in 1996 and known for several other brands, including Vanilla Ninja and Vana Tallinn. Another major producer is Premia, which continues the legacy of the former Tallinn Cold Storage Company, or Tallinna Külmhoone. Under its Väike Tom label, new products are launched every year, including a salted caramel cone this season. Together, these two manufacturers produce nearly 100 different ice creams, with around twenty new products introduced annually for ice cream lovers.

One product largely absent from Finnish shops is ice cream sold in a waffle cup, known locally as a tops. These are a legacy of the Soviet era. In the past, however, such ice creams did not come wrapped in the colourful packaging seen today. In 1936, Joseph Stalin sent Anastas Mikoyan to the United States to study the food industry, and one of the things he brought back was knowledge of modern ice cream production.

One Clear Favourite

For the test, five ice cream bars and five waffle-cup ice creams were selected from a Rimi supermarket near Tallinn’s harbour area. The bars contained more ice cream, 80–90 grams, than the waffle-cup products, with 65 grams. The Tere curd ice cream included in the test was manufactured by Balbiino, while the Rimi Smart products were made in Poland and Latvia.

A tasting panel with a wide age range selected its favourites, and the two Estonian manufacturers performed almost equally well. Premia’s new Väike Tom DO-RE-MI received the highest score and was the clear overall winner. Balbiino’s ice cream bars received consistently strong ratings, with the two-colour banana-and-chocolate variety emerging as the best of the bars.