In an exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Nuala and Fiona Bobowski, co-founders of Fromage Protein Pops, share the story of how they turned a bold idea into a fast-growing Canadian business. Combining Nuala’s PhD-level food science expertise with Fiona’s creative flair, they developed the country’s first cottage cheese-based frozen dessert that balances indulgence with nutrition.
We’re Nuala and Fiona, sisters and co-founders of Fromage Protein Pops: a first-of-its-kind Canadian innovation pairing the joy of ice cream with the goodness of cottage cheese. Before starting our small business, right-handed, analytical, and detail-oriented Nuala earned a PhD in food science and worked in global CPG as a sensory scientist, while left-handed Fiona, with her wild imagination and creative streak, trained as both an actor and a hairstylist. We couldn’t be more different from each other if we tried, but our contrasting strengths are the foundation of our partnership, bolstered by the shared values that drive our business forward.
We’re adaptable. We persisted but remained open to possibility through three product pivots and more than 170 recipe trials over three years, knowing we had an idea worth bringing to life.
We’re tenacious. We started our brand with no business experience and no capital, but we’ve confronted every challenge that has come our way, from building our own ice cream cart when purchasing new was too expensive, to navigating a national ingredient shortage in the weeks before our launch. When we set our minds to something, we find a way to make it happen.
You spent three years and more than 170 recipe trials — including a trip to urgent care when a batch was literally too hard to scoop. What was the hardest part of developing Fromage Protein Pops, and when did you finally feel, “We’ve nailed it”?
The hardest part was getting the texture right. Making ice cream is a science—it’s all about getting the ratio of fat, sugar, water, and air just right, so the mixture freezes into something smooth and scoopable, instead of icy and dense. When you start changing those ratios, things can go wrong quickly.
When we first came up with our idea for a cottage cheese-based frozen dessert, I sent Fiona a basic vanilla ice cream recipe and suggested she start by swapping out some of the cream for blended cottage cheese. It wasn’t that easy! It took a lot more experimentation, knowing that in addition to not compromising on flavour or texture, we also wanted our pops to have at least 10 grams of natural protein, significantly less sugar than ice cream, and that we didn’t want to use any alternative sweeteners.
The same thing that was the hardest part to get right, is the same thing that made us finally feel like we nailed it: the texture. Our pops are deliciously rich and creamy, even with cottage cheese as the first ingredient.
One of you is a PhD food scientist from global CPG, the other a hairstylist with a wild creative streak. How does building a business as sisters actually work day to day, and how do your opposite strengths show up in the way you make decisions and solve problems together?
Our opposite strengths are exactly what make our business work. I take care of the creative tasks, like branding, social media, our website, and Nuala manages recipe development, interpreting regulations, and grant writing. One of us sees the big, artistic vision; the other sees the technical path to make it real. And because we’ve spent our whole lives reading each other, we don’t even have to talk through who’s doing what. Tasks just naturally fall to the sister whose strengths fit the task best.
Day-to-day, there’s a level of honesty and mutual respect unique to sisters that we think makes our journey possible. Neither of us sugarcoats anything, but neither of us takes anything personally either. This openness means we trust each other’s instincts completely, allowing us to move quickly and stay aligned while juggling several responsibilities at once.
In your own words, what sets you apart from other “better‑for‑you” brands, and how do you explain this new product category to someone seeing it for the first time?
Better-for-you options in the freezer aisle tend to strip ice cream down, removing the ingredients that make it so wonderful, but we took a different approach: starting with wholesome, humble cottage cheese, blended until it’s smooth, and making it a lot more fun. Our pops are rich and creamy, naturally high in protein, have about 60% less added sugar than ice cream, and are made without protein powders or alternative sweeteners.
This difference is an important distinction. Better-for-you is often aligned with diet culture and guilt-free positioning. We don’t think these things need to be part of the conversation around food, and that we can instead just focus on what makes us feel good. This is where nourishing indulgence comes in. We’ve proven you can have both (nourishment and indulgence), and in doing so, have made the nutrition of cottage cheese accessible (and irresistible!) to people who would never eat it off a spoon.
You launched from an ice cart you built yourselves and, just a year and a half later, won the Canadian Health Food Association Launch Pad Pitch Competition for Most Innovative Product. Now that you’ve been selected as a Mastercard Small Business Fund recipient, what do you hope to achieve with this support.
100% of the funding we’ve received as a recipient will be put toward our first production run with a co-manufacturer, allowing us to produce the volume needed to expand beyond BC and build on the momentum we’ve created over the last two years. The financial capital we’ve received from Mastercard will be truly instrumental in helping us take the next steps for growth.
You’ve described yourselves as adaptable, tenacious, and humble, celebrating mentors and community as much as your own grit. What has surprised you most since starting the business, and what advice would you share with other Canadian small‑business founders trying to bring a “never‑been‑done‑before” idea to life with limited capital and experience?
We’ve been really surprised by the scope and scale of our audience. When we launched from our ice cream cart in 2024, we assumed our pops would appeal to health-conscious Millennials and Gen Z consumers. Although this remains true, we quickly learned our reach was far broader than we ever could have imagined.Our pops are loved by kids because they taste like ice cream, their parents as a healthier option, by athletes as recovery fuel, and seniors seeking extra protein for strength with aging. This is something we never would have learned if we didn’t spend so much time directly engaged with our community, having face-to-face conversations with anyone who stopped by our cart.
And this is exactly our advice for anyone bringing an innovative idea to life: the most valuable information can be gained from talking to potential consumers, so spend as much time with them as you possibly can before you aim for retail. Sell your product at farmers markets, give out free samples in exchange for feedback, and collect the data yourselves. Nothing replaces real conversations with real people. It’s the fastest way to understand who your product resonates with and why.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CanadianSME Small Business Magazine. Our platform is dedicated to fostering dialogue and sharing insights that inspire and empower small and medium-sized businesses across Canada.
