Digging into a vanilla sundae doused with rivers of hot Frango syrup, Sue Lueders of Hinsdale is talking about her passion for ice cream.
“I buy a half gallon of Edy’s Cookies and Cream that lasts me maybe a week. I’d buy Ben & Jerry’s instead of Edy’s, but theirs only comes by the pint. I eat a pint in one sitting and that’s too expensive.” A half gallon of Edy’s is $3.40 to $4.50, depending on where she shops, while a pint of Ben and Jerry’s is $3.
Across the room at the Crystal Palace in Marshall Field’s State Street store, Denise Rottman of Orland Park spoons up a swirl of soft frozen no-fat Frango yogurt and remembers that the last time she had real ice cream was probably two years ago-and she comes from an ice cream family.
“Every day,” she reminisced, “we’d all ride our bikes over to the ice cream shop. We made ice cream at home-vanilla, chocolate chip. My father ate a pint of Haagen-Dazs every day till the day he died.”
Lueders and Rottman represent the extremes and the main trends in the world of frozen desserts: Lueders doesn’t give a hoot about ice cream’s fat content but considers cost when buying take-home. Rottman gave up ice cream because of its fat. And besides, she said, “frozen yogurt flavors are so good now you can hardly tell the difference.”
Their views also could serve as a metaphor for the times, their relationships with ice cream symbolic of some of the driving forces of the ’90s-health, getting the most for your money, and-not to be ignored-some pleasure along the way.
And the trends don’t bode well for the likes of specialty ice cream makers like Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. The Waterbury, Vt.-based company has ridden high on America’s infatuation with milk-fat-rich ice creams, but last month predicted it would lose money in the fourth quarter, the first loss since it went public a decade ago.
It isn’t that America has stopped eating dessert. Frozen dairy dessert products-ice cream, ice milk, frozen yogurt, sorbets-reached a record sales high of $10.2 billion in 1993. Consumption climbed to 23.5 quarts a person-that’s one quart for every man, woman and child in America every two weeks or so.
But fewer are screaming for ice cream, the delectable darling of the go-go ’80s. Ice cream sales have been anemic, while frozen yogurt has been clipping along, growing at an annual pace of 11 to 12 percent.
Chalk up the popularity of frozen yogurt to health consciousness. The proliferation of “lite” types has made yogurts the substitute of choice for real ice cream-complete with the blessings of cardiologists. Said Rottman, “Our doctor told us that of all things to watch in your diet, it’s fat. So we do.”
But people do make exceptions. They still indulge in ice cream, and when they do, they go for the richest super-premiums, those creamy, chunky, luscious, irresistible ice creams loaded with fat grams.
In 1993, for example, more than half of all packaged ice creams sold were what the industry calls super premium or premium. That means high in fat-and price.
By industry standards, super-premiums generally have a milk-fat content of 18 percent to a whopping 24 percent, comparable fat-wise to fettucini Alfredo (which, not too incidentally, the Center for Science in the Public Interest calls “a heart attack on a plate”), but with a lower fat percentage than a Big Mac.
People with an iota of interest in health (or cost) might opt for what the industry calls “regular,” with 12 to 16 percent fat, or “economy,” 10 to 12 percent, closer to the fat content of a grilled lean chicken sandwich (hold the mayo).
The other whammy that has smacked Ben & Jerry’s super-premium market is as American as, well, ice cream on apple pie: competition. Giants like Franklin Park-based Dean Foods Co., along with brands such as Dreyer’s and Breyer’s, sell premium ice creams that are lower both in fat content and price.
It isn’t that super-rich ice cream no longer has a place at the American table, but that table is increasingly away from home. Ice cream is still the preferred dessert for many, especially when they’re enjoying it out-be it a restaurant or the local Baskin-Robbins. Restaurateur Gordon Sinclair says there’s “no resistance to ice cream desserts when people are treating themselves.”
Homer’s Ice Cream Co. in Wilmette, the bastion of sweet treats on the North Shore since 1935, has been seeing a trend back to ice cream after consumers’ first big love affair with frozen yogurts in the ’80s, according to owner Dean Poulos.
“When they come in for ice cream, they say they’re going to splurge, that they’re entitled to it. And then they want the real thing, all natural ingredients, quality.”
It’s pretty much the same at the blue and silver art deco Zephyr Ice Cream Parlor and Cafe in Chicago. The Zephyr carries frozen yogurt on occasion and a sugar-free version for diabetics, says co-owner Louis Bacoyanis. But its real business is ice cream, “the same quality in the same flavors we’ve carried for 18 years-French vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, the best butter pecan in the city.”
And Bacoyanis added, “we’re seeing the same kids who came in here when they were 15 coming in now carrying their kids. They still want ice cream.”
But at both Homer’s and the Zephyr, customers are usually eating a quality premium, rather than the fat-heavy super premiums, probably more like having spaghetti with tomato/basil sauce than the fettucini Alfredo.
Yet, while many live it up when they’re out, they don’t want labels with double-digit fat grams staring at them in their own refrigerators-and they’re checking prices.
“People want value,” says Michael Rapaport, director of marketing for Des Plaines-based Bresler’s Ice Cream and Yogurt Shops, with 200 franchised shops in 30 states. “There’s a price consciousness about ice cream just as there is about a lot of things today. People ask, `Is it worth the cost?’ So people are looking around at different products.”
Susannah Stoll, spokeswoman for the International Ice Cream Association, a division of the Dairy Foods Association in Washington, D.C., believes the new labeling laws are affecting the super premiums.
She said many people never realized the vast differences in fat grams in different types of ice cream. When they compare-for example, 1/2 cup Haagen-Dazs Brownie Overload with 22 fat grams to 1/2 cup Edy’s Fudge Mousse with a mere 9 fat grams-they’re likely to opt for the lower fat content. “They’re health conscious, but not to the point that they’ll give up ice cream completely.”
Cheryl Robertson, spokeswoman for Dominicks Finer Foods Inc., confirms such trends. “Ice cream still outsells frozen yogurt, though there’s been a recent leveling off of super premium. What we’re seeing is an upward trend in yogurt and low-fat ice cream and a strengthening trend toward no-fat and sugar-free frozen desserts.”
Dean Foods introduced a non-fat, no-sugar-added Guilt Free ice cream nine months ago in the southeastern states. Already, said Doug Parr, vice president of dairy sales and marketing for Dean, it is the No. 3 non-fat ice cream in the country (behind Dreyer’s Fat Free and Sealtest Free). Dean introduced it to the Chicago market about three weeks ago and plans to roll it out in most of the country by April.
Sweetened with Nutrasweet and using Simplesse as a fat replacer, Guilt Free comes in seven flavors. To pick just one, the triple chocolate contains 80 calories for a half-cup serving (compared with 280 calories and 18 fat grams for Ben & Jerry’s mocha fudge ice cream or 300 calories plus 20 fat grams for Haagen-Dazs chocolate chocolate chip ice cream).
According to InfoScan data from Information Resources Inc., a Chicago marketing, research and software company, regular ice cream is losing market share to both low-fat and non-fat frozen dessert products, which grew 27 percent over the last year. But ice cream is still king, controlling 68 percent of every dollar spent on frozen dairy desserts in the first three quarters of last year, down from 69.5 percent two years ago.
Facing its first red-ink quarter, Ben & Jerry’s seems to have seen the light, too. The company intends to introduce its first three non-fat yogurt flavors sometime before summer.
What it all comes down to is choices, says Chris Simonds, director of marketing services, USA, for Baskin-Robbins of Glendale, Calif.
“Most people do not eat one type of frozen dessert all the time. They reward themselves. Some days, they say, `What the hell,’ and eat the richest ice cream they can find. Another day, they’re feeling guilty about being five pounds overweight and they go for low fat.”
Simonds added that Baskin-Robbins had a very good 1994, the best in 15 years, which he attributed to having variety-frozen yogurt, no-sugar yogurt-and, of course, ice cream.
