Stagnant for many years, sales of "diet" frozen desserts are leaving their deep-freeze as manufacturers take a lick at producing better tasting products for smarter, health-conscious consumers. This according to the upcoming issue of Food Technology magazine published by the not-for-profit international scientific society Institute of Food Technologists.
A resurgence in these frozen desserts is expected as a result of reformulation to improve the taste of reduced-fat, -sugar, and -calorie products, the article asserts. Consumers' continuing trend to seek indulgences without adding calories is expected to play a significant role.
No-sugar and no-sugar added products are positioned to attract consumers affected by diabetes and are predicted to become a hot-selling category among frozen desserts, according to the article.
Americans spend $33 billion annually on weight-reduction products and services that include diet foods, products and programs. Targeting these consumers, most major frozen dessert manufacturers have recently introduced health-conscious products with favorable results. For some, it's helped bump sales by nearly 20 percent when the retail ice cream market is increasing at a rate of about two percent.
Keeping just enough cream in the product seems to be part of the new products' winning formula. Another key is marketing frozen desserts with vastly varying levels of reduced-fat, -calories and -sugar.
More than 90 percent of all U.S. households buy and eat ice cream, providing the market for the 1.6 billion gallons of ice cream produced in 2001 and accounting for over $4 billion in supermarket sales. An additional $2 billion was spent this past year for frozen novelties like sandwiches and pops, a surge of over seven percent.
Ice cream alternatives like frozen yogurt and sherbets are selling about $500 million a year, showing that ice cream products are still the bigger attraction.
Food Technology is published monthly by IFT, providing news and analysis of the development, use, quality, safety, and regulation of food sources, products, and processes. Also in this issue: The potato chip celebrates its 150th birthday, the role of research chefs, and challenges of developing foods children really like. This May issue is accessible at http://www.ift.org/publications/docshop/ft_shop/ftindex.shtml.
Founded in 1939, the Institute of Food Technologists is a not-for-profit international scientific society with 28,000 members working in food science, technology and related professions in industry, academia and government. As the society for food science and technology, IFT brings sound science to the public discussion of food issues. For more on IFT, see www.ift.org.
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