The votes are in for Refrigerated & Frozen Foods’ Readers’ Choice Best New Retail Products contest. Congratulations to DeeBee’s Organics, Canada, for tying for first place with a total of 1,262 votes for its TeaPops frozen dessert.

Marina Mayer, editor-in-chief of Refrigerated & Frozen Foods and the creator of the Readers’ Choice Best New Retail Products contest, talked exclusively with Dionne Laslo-Baker, founder and CEO of DeeBee’s Organics, to talk more in-depth about the contest, the product and what’s in store for the future. 

Refrigerated & Frozen Foods: First off, congratulations on being named one of Refrigerated & Frozen Foods’ Top 5 Readers’ Choice winners. What does this recognition mean to you, your company and its products?

Dionne Laslo-Baker: First off, thank you to Refrigerated & Frozen Foods and all of our incredible supporters for this recognition. We are honored and excited to be included in this year’s Best New Retail Products. In our eyes, this recognition is validation that our consumers really understand the core value of our company and our product. With so many products in the dessert and frozen food category, we are grateful to be loved by so many people, and appreciate that we stood out to participants who voted. We hope this will help us continue to grow as a company and bring awareness to our mission and one-of-a-kind organic products.

Refrigerated & Frozen Foods: Your new retail product—DeeBee’s Organics TeaPops—was nominated by Refrigerated & Frozen Foods’ editor-in-chief, Marina Mayer. What features does this new product hold that would allow it to even be nominated?

Laslo-Baker: DeeBee’s Organics TeaPops are widely celebrated for their originality, taste and quality. Our products are everything that adults, parents and kids are looking for in a product—100% certified organic, gluten-free, vegan, nut-free, dairy-free, soy-free, certified non-GMO, low calorie, low fat or fat-free, rich in antioxidants, never contain refined sugar and taste delightful. As the world’s first certified-organic, tea-based frozen novelty, DeeBee’s TeaPops are cutting edge in the dessert and frozen food industry, answering an impressive consumer demand for desserts that everyone can feel good about enjoying.

Refrigerated & Frozen Foods: How does this new product resonate with your fans and consumers?

Laslo-Baker: With each health benefit in mind, most consumers realize how healthy our products are—what’s shocking to most is how delicious they taste. Beyond loving the taste and texture of our TeaPops, consumers have continued to support the three pillars of DeeBee’s Organics—ingredients, philanthropy and science. As a company founded by doctors, we give science a voice in everything we do; we create each product with only the best, healthiest, organic ingredients possible, and we consistently give back much more than we take to help support and educate our community. People find great importance in being able to trust a company that makes their food, and have been extremely supportive of our efforts to build a different kind of food company in this industry.

Refrigerated & Frozen Foods: What goes into developing a new product?

Laslo-Baker: A lot of hard but fun and exciting work goes into developing each new product. Every idea is conceptualized through by teams of physicians, research scientists, nutritionists and industry chefs. We research ingredients—from superfruits to exotic teas—to create an impressive blend of health benefits. The next part of development is getting them to taste as amazing as they do and strengthen the taste without flavoring, sticking to our core values and origins. Thankfully, using high-quality, real, organic ingredients allow flavors to be full-bodied, sweet and delicious.

Refrigerated & Frozen Foods: Re: its packaging, any unique features to the product’s packaging?

Laslo-Baker: We package our TeaPops in 100% recycled paper material boxes. Our packaging received high praises at Natural Products Expo West in 2013, and was mentioned in the “30 Eye Catching Package Designs at Expo West.” Our boxes are carefully designed to appeal to adults and children because our products are loved by both kids and kids at heart. Our use of design, typography and color help our products stand out in the dessert category and even more in the frozen category.

Refrigerated & Frozen Foods: What is on the horizon for your company?

Laslo-Baker: As we are based in Canada and have recently introduced our products into the United States, we will continue our launch across North America in specialty, natural and mainstream food retailers. We hope that our growth will also sustain the growth of various charitable organizations we support and increase our resources to educate communities on healthy diets, GMOs and the science of food. Soon, DeeBee’s Organics TeaPops will be available to everyone.

We are currently researching compostable wrapper materials (cutting edge again, as we will be first in the frozen novelty industry to use these), and sources for bamboo sticks to use in our TeaPops. Our goal is to have a zero carbon footprint company. In the future, we will also develop other products under the DeeBee’s Organics company name that will help promote our brand’s values.