The Chunk Fest is an outdoor annual ice cream carnival, organised by Ben and Jerry’s.
Chunk Fest 2013.
I was at this year’s edition of the Chunk Fest carnival, held at The Promontory @ Marina Bay, from 2pm to 10pm last Saturday.
The 2013 festival was used as a platform to increase awareness of their brand new ice cream flavour, Couch Potato, which has just been launched in Singapore. Couch Potato is a yummy vanilla ice cream with a salted caramel swirl and clusters of chocolate-coated salty potato chips.
What is the Chunk Fest?
Chunk Fest is Singapore’s largest ice cream festival. One of the highlights is being able to test flavours that have been flown in from the USA – and are not available at stores here. This year, 13 flavours were shipped in – and were only available at the Fest. The special flavours included Karamel Sutra (caramel and chocolate ice cream with fudge chips), Candy Bar Pie (peanut butter ice cream with fudge, nougat and chocolate-coated pretzels) and Americone Dream (vanilla ice cream with fudge waffles and caramel).
A sample scoop of Couch Potato ice cream
Samples of Couch Potato were also given out to those at the carnival, if they uploaded a photograph of themselves at the event – onto their Facebook or Instagram accounts.
Perhaps this annual festival is also Ben and Jerry’s way of testing the Singapore market for new flavours – because Couch Potato was, in fact, one of the flavours that was available at the 2012 Chunk Fest. The flavour must have been popular with Singaporeans, then.
Massive queues clamouring for ice cream!
Activities Galore
Besides the ice cream, there were plenty of other activities going on at the carnival to keep everyone entertained. These included many interesting games where attractive prizes, ranging from mugs, smartphone covers and folders, to Ben and Jerry’s ice cream vouchers, could be won.
Couch Potato
Most of the games actually centered around potatoes, because of the Singapore launch of the Couch Potato ice cream flavour.
I took part in a guessing game that required me to taste three flavours of the Ben and Jerry ice cream, then naming correctly the flavour that I had just sampled – while being blindfolded.
One of the challenges of this particular game was that the flavours selected to be a part of it, were not available in Singapore now – i.e. the red velvet, karamel sutra and chocolate peppermint ones.
All mine! Don’t touch it!
Fortunately though, I guessed all of the three flavours correctly, so I got a cup of ice cream as well as a Ben and Jerry’s mug. It must have been my lucky day!
Another game that caught my attention featured a balancing scale, which had a huge cardboard cutout of a pint of Couch Potato ice cream on one end (with weights attached). Players had to place potatoes into a bucket at the other end to balance out both sides of the scale and those who managed to do so – in 45 seconds – would get a small prize, such as a mug, plastic folder or a smartphone jacket.
Struggling to sort out potato chips.
As well, another intriguing game required participants to sort out two completely different flavours of potato chips that had been mixed together (purely by sight alone – no tasting) and if they were able to do this correctly, they would win a prize, of course. Prizes included items such as mugs, plastic folders and smartphone jackets.
Empowering People Booths
In addition to the games, there was also booths set up by Ben and Jerry’s partner charities – Project Happy Feet and the Dyslexia Association of Singapore.
Understanding the struggles of those with dyslexia.
They were there to promote their various causes, to empower the lives of people through education and training, and increasing awareness of young people with dyslexia.
Music and Movies
There was also live music, with local bands playing a large variety of songs on stage. As well, carnival attendees could also dedicate songs to friends and family members, at a special booth set up at the occasion.
A movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was also screened in the evening. This movie was chosen because of its association with ice cream and other sweet desserts.
Faire la Coquette Ben & Jerry’s – the victorious team in the Vermonster challenge. (Picture taken from Ben and Jerry)
Vermonster Challenge
This was another of the main highlights of Chunk Fest 2013.
The annual Vermonster Challenge is where participants form teams of four to finish a Ben and Jerry Vermonster – which is a massive 20 scoops of ice cream, four bananas, four ladles of hot fudge, three chocolate chip cookies, one chocolate fudge brownie, 10 scoops of walnuts, four different toppings, and some whipped cream. The fastest team wins and is rewarded with a year’s supply of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
This year, the winning team literally completed the challenge in a record-breaking 18 seconds – but unfortunately, I was not a member!
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