THE Jurassic Coast will get a boost thanks to a sweet treat.

Purbeck Ice Cream has released a new range of desserts in partnership with the Jurassic Coast Trust.

The firm says 5p from every tub sold will go to the trust to help conserve, protect and educate people about the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, a 95-mile stretch of coastline from East Devon to Dorset.

The Jurassic Range was launched at the Etches Collection in Kimmeridge, a museum housing many fossils collected from the local area which are up to 150 million years old.

The concept of Jurassic-themed ice cream was conceived 10 years ago, but only came to fruition when the firm was approached by the Jurassic Coast Trust. The range includes The Dig-a-saurus, which combines vanilla Madagascan ice cream with a chocolate dinosaur which has to be dug out, Purbeck Rocks incorporates honeycomb pieces and chocolate footprint fossil shapes, and Ammonite Bites which includes ‘chocolate fossil ammonites and trilobites’.

Pete Hartle, owner and director of Purbeck Ice Cream, originally came up with the concept 10 years ago for what he thought was a fabulous ice cream that embraced the local coastline and rich history of dinosaurs and fossils found along the Jurassic Coast.

A spokesman for the company said: “The concept was that you could carefully dig around a Belgian chocolate dinosaur, eating all the Madagascan Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, before victoriously consuming the revealed (historically accurate) dinosaur. The other Directors Hazel and Patrick laughed at his preposterous idea and proclaimed that it would never work. Every year Pete would bring up the Dig-a-saurus, and every year Hazel and Patrick would laugh and say no.”

But then the Jurassic Coast team got in touch and the rest is history. The independent charity is responsible for managing the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, and aims to enable everyone to have the best possible experience of the Jurassic Coast, whether they want to learn, enjoy, work or study. They receive grant funding from Dorset and Devon County Councils, Natural England and the Environment Agency. Visit jurassiccoast.org