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Food & Beverage Industry

the scoop on ICE CREAM

Dairy Foods, March, 2001 by Kevin T. Higgins

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If innovative flavors are to be successful, they need to be high quality, and the industry has made significant strides in delivering consistent, quality products to grocers' freezers. Now researchers are gaining a better understanding of the dynamics of taste and texture, and new equipment and ingredients are becoming available.

New protein-based ingredients have great potential in ice cream production. Whey protein concentrates hold promise as a substitute for stabilizers and emulsifiers. They add greater functionality, interacting with fat to pro duce a smoother, richer product and extending shelf life by modifying the size of air bubbles in the product and minimizing the size of ice crystals.

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Low-temperature extrusion is one of the more exciting technological developments. Instead of coming out of the continuous or batch freezer at about 24 degrees F, the ice cream is at 0 to 5 degrees, eliminating the need for a hardening room. More importantly, smaller ice crystals are formed, resulting in smoother, creamier mouthfeel.

Swiss scientists developed the technology. The first commercially available extruder is from Carl Schrodter GMBH, Berlin. Unilever and Nestle have the technology.

Low-temperature extrusion poses some packaging challenges, and so far no one has been able to add inclusions after the ice cream has been extruded. Still, the technology has created a stir among North America's leading ice cream scientists. It is particularly applicable to novelties.

"When the product comes out of the extruder, it can be manipulated," notes Bruce Tharp of Tharp & Young. "You can make a rope of it and turn it into a pretzel."

"It's a very revolutionary process," agrees Doug Goff, a dairy scientist at the University of Guelph (Ont.). "Because the shape is already solidified, novelty makers can immediately enrobe or wrap the product."

Another European innovation making its way to the New World combines cryogenic freezing with zero adhesion technology (ZAT) to create three-dimensional novelties. Dubbed Cryo-ZAT, the system combines a crusting/freezing tunnel from Air Products with molding equipment to produce intricate shapes at -320 degrees F.

Unilever's Popsicle brand is introducing a panda-shaped ice cream bar in the U.S., but domestic producers haven't taken novelty shapes to the sophisticated level of the Europeans. Instead, super-sizing is being tried.

"It seems bigger is better," says Carl Breed, marketing director at Brenham, Texas-based Blue Bell. "If you go into convenience stores today, everything is huge." Blue Bell has upped the size of its double fudge bar for the c-store channel and labeled it "Texas-sized." Likewise, Wells Dairy rolled out jumbo-sized novelties last year.

America's community of ice cream researchers also is advancing the science. Work at Penn State has forced production managers to rethink the effect of dasher speed on crystal size. Conventional wisdom held that the faster the dasher spins in the freezer, the finer the crystals will be. "That's true, but only to a point," Penn State's Bob Roberts reports. "After that the blades in the drum produce so much heat energy that crystals start getting larger. By better understanding the technical parameters, manufacturers might be able to save energy, improve quality and extend shelf life."

Food & Beverage Industry

the scoop on ICE CREAM

Dairy Foods, March, 2001 by Kevin T. Higgins

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