Ice Cream/Novelties

RSS

Honors for the most innovative ice cream flavor went to Carrot Cake Ice Cream entered by Perry’s Ice Cream, Akron, N.Y. Sensient Flavors, an ingredients company serving the ice cream industry, won most innovative prototype flavor for its Pistachio Brittle – Bourbon Caramel Ice Cream. Perry’s Ice Cream also took home the most innovative novelty award for its Pink Grapefruit Sorbet Bars.

Dairy processors do not have a problem on the order of pink slime, but they still have to vigorously defend the nutritional value of their products.

Each flavor made by Salt & Straw Ice Cream includes local, organic and sustainable ingredients. The Portland, Ore.-based company opened in May 2011 with the goal of featuring the “best Oregon has to offer, through ice cream.” The owners call their business a “farm-to-cone” company.

Bacetti is a new line of bite-sized premium ice cream novelties developed by a brother and sister team who founded the same-named San Francisco-based company about a year ago.

Expect to see some new feature flavors—in both the natural and churned lines—this year from Velvet Ice Cream Co., Utica, Ohio. And while president Luconda Dager is hush-hush about other 2012 plans, she says what won’t change is the company’s continued focus on quality and value.

Mikawaya is a Vernon, Calif.-based candy maker and ice cream processor that is on the move with new products and formats backed by social media marketing. The company plans to expand its ice cream offerings with its first pint line — Mikawaya Exottics — to be released as early as this April.

Philip R’s Frozen Desserts made headlines in 2010 with its award-winning Lollibons (picture an ice cream lollipop or a cake pop on a stick). The Swiss vanilla almond Lollibon was selected as a silver finalist for Outstanding Perishable Foodservice Product in the 2010 sofi Awards from the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. In 2011, the novelty received a top award from the World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product contest in the creative and innovative class.

Unilever, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., is in the process of rolling out a variety of frozen novelties for summer 2012.

Manipulating texture is the latest rage when it comes to creating a point of differentiation in the crowded drinkable yogurt category. In Brazil, Coop, a global chain of supermarkets, introduces private label Whipped Part Skimmed Drinking Yogurt with Honey. The whipped texture adds a new dimension to the category.

Despite high energy costs, uncertain ingredient prices and a weak economy, processors continue to develop new ice cream and novelty products and flavors.