Texas Water Buffalo Milk Creamery OroBianco opens ice cream stand in Austin

A Hill Country Italian dairy known for using water buffalo milk is coming to Austin with a new ice cream truck this year. OroBianco Italian DairyThe ice cream truck will be found in Hudson Meat Market at 1800 South Congress Avenue in the Bouldin Creek neighborhood starting in September.

OroBianco’s ice cream truck menu will include its staple flavors, such as pistachio made from Waco nuts, single-origin chocolates the company produces from raw cacao, and citrus cream. There will also be seasonal options, such as Fredericksburg peaches and the recently popular maple-bacon bourbon.

Owner Phil Giglio believes in the creamy magic of buffalo milk, whose creaminess lends itself well to dairy products like cheese and ice cream. “Buffalo milk is much higher in fat than cow’s milk,” Giglio says, despite what people might think about milk from domesticated bovines. “This isn’t gross,” he continues. “It’s really good, beautiful milk, and it’s all made locally.”

Giglio, who still works as a corporate lawyer, kept thinking about water buffalo milk, so he decided he wanted to get into the dairy business. However, despite the popularity of this particular milk internationally, especially in Italy, it was not readily available in Texas. “All over the world, it is considered a premium thing, but in the U.S. we just don’t have any context for it, because there aren’t a lot of people doing it,” he says.

OroBianco Italian Dairy

OroBianco Italian Dairy

So Giglio knew he needed to raise the animals himself. He contacted Jason Peeler of the Texas ranch. Peeler Farmswho was already raising water buffalo. They partnered to create a dairy farm in Floresville, which was completed in 2020. This is where water buffalo roam around eating grass and are herded by horses. [a] “It’s a very South Texas ranching tradition,” Giglip says, which is “a little bit unique for a dairy.” It’s now considered one of the largest in the U.S., he says, but “we’re microscopic by dairy standards.”

OroBianco opened a physical store in White in 2021 along with their Italian-style creamery. They expanded with a second location in Stonewall in 2022, an ice cream truck in Dripping Springs in 2023 and a third store in Fredericksburg in March 2024. (There were an ice cream truck (This store will be in operation in Dripping Springs from 2023 to July 2024. There was also a pizza truck in Stonewall, which made Neapolitan pizzas.) The stores sell their products and other goods, as well as sandwiches, coffee, and spritzes.

OroBianco cheesemaker Adam Thompson and his team make that creamy mozzarella, but there are other cheeses, including a spreadable fresh white; Bufaletta, similar to feta; and Bluebonnet, a version of blue cheese.

OroBianco Italian Dairy

Giglio purchased a decommissioned 1960s delivery truck, known as the Detroit Industrial Vehicle Company (also known as Divco), that had been used for milk deliveries (often in the Northeast) from Pennsylvania.

OroBianco was already working with Hudson Meats in South Congress, which makes sausages from the farm’s water buffalo meat. So the company let Giglio park the mobile ice cream truck at its store.

The ice cream truck is OroBianco’s first real expansion into Austin, in addition to providing gelato and cheese to a few Austin chefs and restaurants, such as Italian restaurant L’Oca d’Oro. Depending on how well the OroBianco truck does, Giglio is open to opening a brick-and-mortar store in Austin.

Giglio is also working on retail ice cream sales, which will launch at Central Market in April 2025. He would like to expand to other markets and stores like Royal Blue Grocery.

OroBianco Italian Dairy