Ice cream and frozen dessert processors have their work cut out for them in a very competitive market, but recent numbers show some promise. Ice cream sales are ticking up, ice pop novelty sales increases are kicking the others to the curb and frozen yogurt and sherbet sales are struggling.
The ice cream/sherbet category reached $6.3 billion sales, with dollar sales up 1.8% and unit sales down 0.7% to 1.6 billion, according to Information Resources Inc. (IRI), Chicago, for the 52 weeks ended May 17, 2015. The frozen novelties category’s dollar sales increased 2.4% to $4.6 billion, and units were up 0.3% to 1.5 billion.