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Unilever Tries Reformulating Its Ice Cream To Survive Warmer Freezers 105

Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
The packaged-goods giant aims to cut its environmental impact and retailers' electric bills. From a report: Unilever wants to warm up its ice cream freezers in convenience stores without turning its products into puddles, part of a broader effort to pursue green goals and potentially boost sales in the process.The consumer packaged goods giant, which sells ice cream brands including Ben & Jerry's and Magnum, is testing the performance of its products in freezers that are set to temperatures of roughly 10 degrees Fahrenheit, up from the industry standard of zero. Unilever owns most of the 3 million chest-like freezers that house its ice-cream tubs and treats in bodegas and corner stores, and the energy used to power them accounts for around 10% of Unilever's greenhouse gas footprint, according to the London-based firm. Keeping ice cream at 10 degrees as opposed to zero will reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 20% to 30% per freezer, it said.

It might also help sales with sustainability-minded consumers and even keep stores' ice-cream selling season going longer. Unilever's out-of-home ice cream sales declined slightly during the fourth quarter of 2022 because, the company said, some stores unplugged their freezers sooner in the year than usual. "What was happening was that shopkeepers in some markets responded to fears about rising energy costs by switching off their cabinets earlier than they otherwise would have done," departing Chief Executive Alan Jope said in discussing the results earlier this month. Unilever in January said Hein Schumacher would take over as CEO in July. [...] But the strategy has required Unilever to reformulate some of its ice creams so they can withstand higher temperatures without melting, losing structural integrity or forfeiting what the company calls their distinctive mouthfeel. Higher temperatures can lead to softer ice creams that stick to wrappers and slide off ice cream sticks, for example, said Andrew Sztehlo, chief research and development officer for Unilever's ice cream division. Other ingredients such as wafer cones can turn soggy in warmer temperatures, he said.
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Unilever Tries Reformulating Its Ice Cream To Survive Warmer Freezers More

Unilever Tries Reformulating Its Ice Cream To Survive Warmer Freezers

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  • As a rule, I avoid ice cream; too much fat and sugar. I will however make home made vanilla from time to time for my family.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

    • As a rule, I avoid ice cream; too much fat and sugar. I will however make home made vanilla from time to time for my family.

      I don't eat much ice cream either...

      BUT, when I do want a treat, I prefer mine to only have cream, eggs, sugar and maybe some fruit.

      I don't want any other chemicals please.

      I'd much rather spend a bit $$ extra on freezing capacity/capability than ingest more unnecessary chemicals thank you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )

      If they really cared about "green goals", they would stop using cows to make their diabetes and heart disease food.

      • nobody is forcing somebody to eat it. I just believe the chemicals and extra fat and sugar should be avoided. In some cases, we are born into it (heredity) and in others, our parents did a pretty good job of leaving us with chronic health issues (environment). Example: both of my parents were smokers, I never picked it up but I've had asthma since my 30s, made worse now with experiencing both Delta and Omicron CV19 variants. I can't blame my parents, they were just doing what others did. I also did a stint

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Home made vanilla? Do you live in South America? Vanilla is hard to grow in most of the US.

      Seriously, If you made Ice Cream from scratch, why would ruin it with vanilla (artificial, I assume), and make it taste like store ice cream.

      Vanilla (artificial) is overused in snacks and ice cream. I avoid vanilla if I can. "Plain" frozen yogurt taste like frozen yogurt to me. Vanilla frozen yogurt tries to taste like cheap ice cream. "Plain" ice cream is rare, but if I see it at a store/counter, I will buy it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by hogleg ( 1147911 )
      But is it even 'ice cream' any more or more like some kind of frozen milk product with a lot of air in it? The last time I had some store bought 'ice cream' and this was quite a bit ago, it was just lousy. I still like Ben and Jerry's and Hagen Daz though as that seems to be the closest thing to 'ice cream'. More expensive but more real.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bobby ( 109046 )

      You just inspired me. As I commented further down, most, if not all "ice cream" is vegetable gum foam, which I hate. It coats my teeth and tongue.

      I totally forgot that I have a small ice cream maker. I'll make my own. Thanks!

  • Ben and Jerry (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @09:56AM (#63326660)

    That stuff could benefit from being kept slightly warmer. Wonder if using a band saw would be easier than scooping?

    • was safety. My second thought was "what's gonna happen to this stuff when I get it to my 0 degree freezer?".

      If it's designed to sit at 10 degrees but I put it in my colder freezer it's gonna turn into a brick. If I was building an igloo to survive the harsh winter that'd be great though, I'll give 'em that.

  • What size Magnum? (Score:3)

    by dhaen ( 892570 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @10:03AM (#63326672)
    The wrapper was the normal size but the bar inside was barely more than 1" x 2". A magnum is supposed to represent something twice the normal size!

  • Next step (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bickerdyke ( 670000 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @10:03AM (#63326676)

    So what's the next step: Ice cream that can be stored at room temperature?

    Of course you can add gelatine, carobin or any other thickening agent to prevent ice cream for melting, but thank you, but no thank you. I'll let you know if I want friggin Jell-O instead of ice cream.

    • Right. When a scoop falls on the sidewalk and doesn't change after 10 minutes, that ain't ice cream.
    • There's already carrageenin in most cases, which greatly slows melting. But adding more than is already there would likely affect the texture and taste.

  • What's that in metric? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Or at least in degrees Celcius, where zero means freezing.

  • Centigrade (Score:4, Funny)

    by Crookdotter ( 1297179 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @10:09AM (#63326704)
    I had to look it up. They propose a change from -17 to -12. F shouldn't be used anymore. We've inched towards the metric system for ages, but still seem miles away...

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. Using historic units is a bit like being a flat-earther or an anti-vaxxer. Of course, these people claim everybody else is an idiot, so they are particularly bad sufferers from cognitive dissonance.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Indeed. Basically all non-metric / non-SI stuff is a leftover from when people did not yet know how to do units and measurements right. Anybody defending these just not does have a valid point.

        • Why, most people in the US are used to Fahrenheit. People outside the US are not our concern. I do not care what the temperature in Paris is so why should they care what it is in Dallas? Most Europeans speak two or three languages but they only want one measurement system to exist.

    • We've inched towards the metric system for ages, but still seem miles away... [emphasis added]

      Well played sir, well played.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by codrus ( 35604 )

      Surely you mean a change from 255.3 to 260.9? There's no inherent superiority of C over F, both are based on arbitrary assignment of two values.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      If we were going to switch, we'd switch to kelvins. Celsius is the worst of both worlds: useless for science (because zero is in the wrong place, so you can't do calculations, like multiplying for instance), and yet also inferior for talking about the weather. Is body temperature 27 or 37 in C? I can never remember.

      • If we were going to switch, we'd switch to kelvins. Celsius is the worst of both worlds: useless for science (because zero is in the wrong place, so you can't do calculations, like multiplying for instance), and yet also inferior for talking about the weather. Is body temperature 27 or 37 in C? I can never remember.

        If you can tell me what unit you end up with when you multiply degrees kelvin I'll accept this argument.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by jonadab ( 583620 )
          > If you can tell me what unit you end up with when you
          > multiply degrees kelvin I'll accept this argument.

          Your sentence is nonsense on so many levels I don't even know where to properly start.

          The kelvin is the fundamental unit of temperature in SI, and really the only unit of temperature that is used to any significant extent in chemistry or physics. What you get when you multiply by some number of kelvins, entirely depends on what the other multiplier is that you're multiplying by it. You might ge

  • wonka (Score:3)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @10:16AM (#63326728)
    Didn't Willy Wonka already invent this ?

  • Surely it should be rock solid at -1C never mind -20?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 )

      No, the point of the fat (and sugar, alcohol when used, etc.) is to keep the ice crystals small so that you don't get a solid block. There should also be a good quantity of air (the technical term is overrun): consider the difference between snow at -1C and ice at -1C.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      > Surely it should be rock solid at -1C

      Hah. You have obviously never lived any place that has winter.

      -1C is, what, about 30F? At temperatures like that, even ice turns to mush if you look at it funny, and more complex crystalline structures like snow or ice cream are completely non-viable.

      I'm assuming something broadly similar to standard atmospheric pressure here. In context, that's a reasonable assumption.

  • Don't get me wrong. I do very much like ice cream. Butter pecan is my favorite. But as problems in food go, it's up there. It's a fat and sugar delivery system requiring deep refrigeration., not to mention the ecological problems of "real vanilla". Much as we would all love our lifetime indulgences to persist, we could let that one go without significant loss. It's not like there aren't plenty of other ways to satisfy our love of sweets.

    Some things we hold dear will fall by the wayside soon. I've got two be

    • Re:We can probably drop ice cream entirely... (Score:5, Funny)

      by know-nothing cunt ( 6546228 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @10:29AM (#63326780)

      20 years from now beef may be very rare indeed (pun noticed, and therefore intended).

      Well done.

      • 20 years from now beef may be very rare indeed (pun noticed, and therefore intended).

        Well done.

        Is finding people who enjoy well done like medium rare, or is it rare? Not everyone likes their steak treated like fucking taco meat.

    • No.
    • What most people don't know is that artificial vanilla is derived from wood and is chemically identical to what you get from vanilla beans. The reason it doesn't taste anywhere near as good is that it doesn't contain all the other chemicals that you get in real vanilla that enhance the flavor. And, I might as well add, any wine or spirit that's aged in wood will have notes of vanilla in its flavor because vanillin gets into the product during the aging process.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      I'm willing to give up vanilla ice cream, and beef. And I have *no* interest in butter pecan anything. Yuck.

      Chocolate ice cream, however, is essential for mental health.

  • It's good enough for astronauts so it should be good enough for me.

    Bonus: It won't be hard to undercut the prices they charge at the Space Center gift store!

  • Unilever, a supporter of Russian aggression (Score:5, Informative)

    by pesho ( 843750 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @10:49AM (#63326864)
    Unilever is one of the few companies that continues to do business with Russia. Like Heineken they figured out that the pull out of western companies from Russia after the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a good opportunity to grow their business without competition. In doing so they support the Russian governments genocide in Ukrainian and Putin's attack on democracy. Their boold soaked ice cream may appeal to some in the West, but that's not the target demographic the article describes and for sure ain't me.

  • There are three ways to get warmer ice cream (as far as I know):

    1) There is "astronaut" ice cream. Which is "freeze dried". It means, all liquid is expelled by sublimatation, and does not even need refrigerating. (It actually tastes okay, but again, there is no ice in it, just cream).

    2) The "Turkish" ice cream
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    It does not melt thanks to the "sakiz" (gum) used in it. But that natural gum is pretty expensive, the process is more involved than traditional manufacturing, and not

  • Disgusting (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @10:51AM (#63326876)
    Yeah these foods are becoming so far removed from the real thing that they are practically unrecognizable. This is worse than shrinkflation. I'd rather see the product made smaller than be compromised in the name of profit, but the corporate execs look at the beloved brands they've acquired and just see dollar signs. In fact, in Canada most of the "ice cream" you see on the shelves doesn't even bother to meet the legal definition of ice cream, and as such you won't find it mentioned anywhere on the carton. Instead it's called a "frozen dessert" and the only thing milk-related is the "Modified Milk Ingredients," whatever those are. The rest is some kind of slurry of coconut oil and tree gums. It's laughable that they can spin the idea of reformulating a product to use more tropical oil products as environmentally friendly. In reality, this just means accelerating deforestation in those regions as they burn down the rainforests to plant oil palms. They're just trying to find any excuse to use more of these cheap tropical oils.

  • Unilever DOESN'T EVEN SELL ICE CREAM anymore. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Monday February 27, 2023 @11:32AM (#63327014) Homepage
    It is frozen dairy dessert. What they did to Breyers is a crime. Obviously I don't buy Breyers anymore since unilever fucked it into ice slush with all those gums and corn syrup.

    Even if I wanted to eat it, it will come right out the other end in an hour because my body no longer tolerates all those gum additives.
    • I noticed this, too. I bought some Breyers cookies and cream without noticing it was "Frozen Dairy Dessert." It was all gummy and seemed to be half air. I think I had a couple scoops before I cut my losses and tossed it.

      Lately, I've been buying store brand ice creams. They are varying quality, but seem to be a good value. Even the worst ones (looking at you, Giant/Stop & Shop) are better than the Breyers crap. I would buy Stop & Shop ice cream, if I happened to be there. Wouldn't touch Bre

  • It's called an ICE cream for a reason. Leave my favourite treat alone and go find yourself something else that is warm and pleasant to lick.

  • If you buy Unilever brand ice cream, I recommend leaving a large spoonful out to melt and see what you get.
    Some of it is OK; most don't melt and turn into something spongy. Those are the ice creams I no longer buy.

  • "It might also help sales with sustainability-minded consumers and even keep stores' ice-cream selling season going longer. Unilever's out-of-home ice cream sales declined slightly during the fourth quarter of 2022 because, the company said, some stores unplugged their freezers sooner in the year than usual."

    It might also help if sustainability-minded consumers didn't own freezers. Who the hell assumes you can unplug a freezer "sooner in the year"? Are you also opening the front door to ensure the rest of the facility remains below freezing to remember why freezers exist?

    It's almost as if Unilever customers forgot how ice cream works. It's in the fucking name, stupid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 )

      Given that the unplugging of freezers is linked to a decline in sales, I presume they mean that some stores cut their electricity bills in winter by stopping selling frozen items altogether rather than that they relied on an ambient temperature low enough to keep them frozen without the use of freezers.

  • Instead of reinventing something that is much costlier and not as good as the wheel, again, why don't we use a bit of common sense?

    Cold air falls. Vertical freezers are inefficient. Open-top freezers are just dumb.

    People shouldn't need to touch the damn eggs or milk until they check out . . . if you need to see the packaging, there should be a flip-book in a study-hall in the back of the store that you can go through.

    Meanwhile, goodbye re-shelved stuff that was cold, warmed up, then chilled gain. Goodbye

  • Unilever's out-of-home ice cream sales declined slightly during the fourth quarter of 2022 because, ...

    The word "Unilever" isn't synonymous with "yummy"?

    More seriously, in addition to the issues described in the second paragraph of TFS, storing ice cream at a higher temperature at the store also means there's less time to get it home and into your freezer before it starts to melt.

  • 12C (10F) is the normal serving temperature for Italian gelato. Perhaps the US has come to its senses?

    I guess it would be too much to expect them to start making coffee that doesnâ(TM)t taste like s**t, too.

    • A. Gelato is not ice cream. Its not bad, but its not ice cream. Don't replace my ice cream with its slightly less good European cousin.

      B. Buy coffee from a local organic roaster. I use Mayorga, but there's a lot of them making good coffee.
  • Make no recipe changes, turn the freezer power down, and rebrand ice cream as ice cream soup. It's better when it's melty anyway.

  • Soon, unilever will make ice cream that can be used for chemotherapy.

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