VIRGINIA BEACH – Chickpeas are the main ingredient in SweetPea, a new plant-based ice cream. The product has half the calories and half the fat of traditional ice cream, according to the company.

“It took us a number of years, a lot of hard work, experimentation and taste tests to get SweetPea just right,” Heather Romens, co-founder. “I’m happy to report that it has been well worth the wait.”

The product is available online at SweetPeawow.com and comes in nine varieties, including vanilla, peanut butter, coffee, mango peach, cookies and cream, salted caramel praline, raspberry, chocolate and cookie dough.