A story of how we quit being lawyers, sold everything, and moved halfway across the world.

Our names are Michael & Victoria, and this is the story of how we quit our jobs as lawyers, sold almost everything we owned, and moved halfway across the world to start making plant-based ice cream in sunny Santa Monica, California.

Looking back, it was a little crazy. At the time, it felt inevitable.

One Rainy Day in London...

We haven't always been Big Love plant-based ice cream.

Frozen Fruit Co actually started on different shores — on a different continent, in a different time zone, and in a very different climate.

We met the way many people do: thrown together by circumstance. In our case, it was the Royal Navy during the first week of our MBA. We went to grad school together, worked at the same law firm, and slowly realized we spent so much time together that we might as well build something together too.

Fed up with long ingredient lists and the heavy feeling that came with so many frozen treats, we asked ourselves one simple question:

Why can’t ice cream be made with simple ingredients, taste amazing, and still leave you feeling good?

So, on a rainy evening in London (because of course it was raining), we decided to try making our own. We focused on plants, fruit, and natural sweeteners — no shortcuts, no compromises. The result surprised us.

That night, Frozen Fruit Co was born.

In the beginning, it was tough. We knew our recipes were special, but we knew nothing about making “ice cream.” We were lawyers, after all. Every spare moment outside work went into testing flavors and learning the craft.

People thought we were crazy. Some industry insiders even told us it couldn’t be done.

We kept going anyway.

Eventually, Frozen Fruit Co won a BBC Good Food Award and began appearing in publications like Vogue, Tatler, The Daily Mail, and Jamie Oliver Magazine.

Soft Serve To Scoops...

Ever since we came up with our first recipe we always thought California and more specifically Los Angeles would be the perfect market to launch and firmly establish ourselves. Year-round sunshine, health conscious and birthing ground of so many great food trends. It didn’t take much convincing (despite the fact Michael had never even been to the States before, let alone Los Angeles). I mean how hard could it be to move to a completely different Continent and start a business.

Let us tell you – it was HARD. We were allowed only three months in the country to make the dream happen, get everything set up, find a lease and gather enough momentum to get our visa approved for the business. It was a tough three months – we thought we would never find anything. We had no samples to show anyone and only some dummy packaging. It was all down to our pitch.

At breaking point, it wasn’t right until the end that we stumbled upon Montana Ave and found our first store. It was meant to be.

We launched on 02 July 2016 and decided to make a drastic change to what we originally did. Instead of serving scoops, we decided we wanted to turn our ice cream recipes into soft serve. Inspired by the likes of Pinkberry, we wanted to create a vegan, plant-based soft-serve version. It was probably a rushed decision. We had never done soft serve before or even knew if our recipes would go through a soft serve machine.

We should have known there were going to be issues when the first time we ever used the machines it turned out they had been wired the wrong way. Making them go backward instead of forward. We solved a lot of the problems, but the reality was our recipes were made for scooping.

We stuck with soft serve at the store for two years before finally making the switch to our grassroots and becoming a plant-based vegan ice cream store. YAY!

The Big Move To Los Angeles...

WOW, you read this far...

From Frozen Fruit Co to Big Love

Over the years, something interesting happened.

Frozen Fruit Co grew — not just as a business, but as a feeling. What we noticed most wasn’t just how much people loved the ice cream, but how it made them feel.

Ice cream became a moment.
A pause.
A small act of joy.

Big Love is the natural evolution of Frozen Fruit Co.

The ingredients, recipes, and values haven’t changed — we still believe ingredients matter and that food should feel good in every sense. But the name Big Love better reflects what this place has become: warmer, more expressive, and deeply connected to the community that’s grown around it.

Frozen Fruit Co is our foundation. Big Love is what it’s grown into.

Wow, you read this far. Thank you for reading our little story. We hope you feel inspired and encouraged that anything is possible when you put your mind to it.

We don’t know what the future holds, but we promise you this…INGREDIENTS MATTER! As long as they do, we will continue to strive to make the delicious, clean, and short ingredient list plant-based ice cream you can feel about eating and feeding your families.

Big Love

Michael & Victoria