Potato Topping

Company: National Harvest
Location: Kansas City, Mo.
Introduced: June 2002
Details: National Harvest introduces the first line of shelf-stable liquid baked potato toppings under the brand Load-It®. The first variety, Fully Loaded, is a sauce blend of sour cream, butter, Cheddar cheese, real bacon and chives. For Thanksgiving, the company grew the line with Sweet Potato, a blend of butter, brown sugar, sugar, pecans and cinnamon. Load-It has a nine-month, no-refrigerated shelflife and is sold in the produce department. The sauces come in 4-oz pouches and contain enough to completely cover two baked potatoes. Suggested retail price is 99 cents to $1.19.
Distribution: National

Drinkable Yogurt

Company: China Premium Foods Corp., a subsidiary of Bravo! Foods International Corp.,
and Heilongjiang Wonder Sun Harbin Dairy Industry Co.
Location: Shanghai
Introduced: November 2002
Details: New Looney Tunes™ branded flavored milks and drinkable yogurts are UHT-processed and packaged in 220-ml aseptic plastic bottles. The packaging includes a new umbrella brand for both product lines—Beng Beng Le—which roughly translates to Leaping and Jumping Fun. Both lines have a six-month ambient shelflife. Initial roll out of Beng Beng Le features eight flavored milks and four flavors of drinkable yogurts.
Distribution: Initial roll out is in Northeast China, with national China distribution planned.

Ice Cream Snack

Company: Nestl?ce Cream Co., LLC
Location: San Ramon, Calif.
Introduced: February 2003
Details: Leveraging the trend of mini snacks and portability, Nestl?ce Cream introduces a first-of-its kind: Nestl?eg; Snack-A-Bites™ ice cream treats. These bite-sized snacks have an artificially flavored-vanilla ice cream center and rich chocolate coating blended with crunchy crispies. Their fun, tiny size allows you to pop them into your mouth one after another.
Distribution: National

Gourmet Ice Cream Dessert Cups

Company: Wells’ Dairy Inc.
Location: Le Mars, Iowa
Introduced: September 2002
Details: Now foodservice operators can offer consumers gourmet layered ice cream desserts made with premium Blue Bunny® ice cream. Sold to operators in individual, specially designed cups where the bottom easily pushes out for dispensing onto a plate for serving, Friaz?s comes in five varieties. Caramel Pecan Passion™ is caramel ice cream blended with praline caramel fudge pieces and layered with a caramel mousse, rich caramel sauce and crunchy glazed pecans. Cookie Craze™ is layers of cookies and cream ice cream, vanilla mousse and chocolate fudge, all topped off with crushed chocolate sandwich cookies. Double Fudge Frenzy™ is rich chocolate ice cream blended with chewy brownies and layered with chocolate mousse, chocolate fudge and chewy bittersweet brownie pieces. Key Lime Melt Down™ combines key lime ice cream with layers of whipped vanilla mousse, key lime sauce and graham cracker crumbs. Lastly, Peanut Butter Panic™ is made with peanut butter ice cream and rich peanut butter revel, and is topped with peanut butter mousse, rich chocolate sauce and chopped Reese’s peanut bitter cups.
Distribution: National for foodservice

Ethnic Baked Bread Cheese

Company: Bass Lake Cheese Factory
Location: Somerset, Wis.
Introduced: November 2002
Details: Bass Lake has developed a new cheese variety based on traditional Finnish-style bread cheese. It’s called Juustoleip?Pronounced “HOO-stah-lee-pah,” it is a flat, slightly squeaky cheese with a buttery flavor. Unusual in that it is literally baked until browned at the end of the cheesemaking process, Juustoleip?s served warm or cold, dipped in coffee or accompanied by honey, jelly or fruit. Juustoleip?s available in 8-oz random weight rectangles approximately 0.75-inch thick. There are two varieties: Original and jalapeño.
Distribution: National

Noteworthy Introductions

Smith Dairy Products Co., Orrville, Ohio, expands the Moovers™ milk line with Reduced Fat Chocolate Malt Shake. “Flavored milk is the shining star in the milk category,” says Bill McCabe, v.p. of marketing. “With the success of our Reduced Fat Vanilla Shake last year, it was a natural to introduce a chocolate version.” Like all Moovers products, the new variety is UHT pasteurized for extended shelflife. The chocolate shake comes in 14-oz bottles and sells for $1.19-1.29 throughout the East and Midwest.

Santa Barbara, Calif.-based FrutStix introduces another healthful all-natural frozen novelty. Watermelon Wedge is made with real watermelon and honeydew fruits molded into the shape of a watermelon wedge. Seeds are chocolate chips. The wedges are currently sold individually as impulse items in 7-Eleven stores nationwide.

When Kraft Foods, Northfield, Ill., colored mozzarella cheese for a special edition Tombstone Green Bay Packers frozen pizza, the company decided to capitalize on the green cheese and rolled out Color-Ums string cheese. Packages contain five 0.75oz strings of green mozzarella cheese. Labels sport a photo of Mike and Scully from the Disney/PIXAR hit Monsters Inc., associating the green cheese with animated monsters. This is another innovative way to get kids to eat more dairy foods.

Truly for on-the-go consumers, new Robin™ Sports Shake by Hampton Mills LLC, Far Hills, N.J., is a whey-based dry drink mix pre-measured for an individual serving into a single-serve plastic bottle. All the consumer does is add water, shake and drink. The formulation dissolves instantly. Each bottle contains 234 calories, 1.5g fat, 43g protein and 12g carbohydrate. Flavors are Dutch Cocoa, Vanilla and Wild Strawberry.