As a delicacy with relative affordability and universal appeal, ice cream is one of those products that serves as a barometer of the times. We've covered ice cream innovations at the high end—such as the Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream Company and its locally sourced, hormone-free ice creams in flavours like ginger, giandujia and red currant—as well as convenience-focused novelties like the MooBella vending machine. Next up? Simplicity, if the Häagen-Dazs Five line is any indication.
Häagen-Dazs Five is a new, all-natural ice cream crafted with only five ingredients: skim milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks and natural flavouring. Available in mint, ginger, coffee, vanilla bean, passion fruit, brown sugar and milk chocolate, the Five line also includes less fat than Häagen-Dazs's other ice creams, the company says. It's now available in stores, and an online flavour finder helps identify availability by ZIP code. Pricing is roughly USD 7 per pint.
Pure, natural, simple—in today's ailing economic climate, such adjectives hold a nostalgic appeal. Everyday consumers may not be able to afford the big luxuries, but at least there's still good, old-fashioned ice cream! ;-)
Website: www.haagendazs.com/products/five.aspx
Contact: www.haagendazs.com/company/contact_form.aspx
Spotted by: Andrea Jones
I must be missing something here. The regular version of Haagen Daaz goes for around US$4.00-$4.50/pint in Northern California and is often on sale for $3/pint.
Now. the company announces an ice cream with LESS ingredients than the regular version for nearly twice the usual price? Is it MORE expensive to make the product? Does it require a new set of machines to make a product with less ingredients? More people to monitor the process? And they do this in a deflationary economy with more than 12 million people unemployed?
Someone should check on the sanity of the marketing!
I think this is a reaction to Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. He states: "If You Can't Say It, Don't Eat It. Don't buy products with more than five ingredients or any ingredients you can't easily pronounce.". Less is more in this case!
@Jojo: we just bought a pint of the passionfruit @ Whole Foods for $2.97. It is... amazing. Delicious, creamy, flavorful. Not only did it cost a full $7 less than a pint of our favorite locally-made, award-winning gourmet ice cream... it has fewer ingredients (no stabilisers and no corn syrup). And less fat to boot. I'll still support my local girl, but will probably choose this stuff if I'm in for a whole pint.
Jo Jo,
You are missing something.
Fresh, wholesome ingredients are often much more expensive than stabilisers and additives that make the other highly manufactured products taste nice.
I.e - Whats more expensive to produce- Pure cocaine (1 ingredient) or cocaine cut with rat poison and other chemicals 'acting' as cocaine. (more than 1 ingredient)
I should imagine that in food production creating a quality product with less ingredients would be much more expensive to master.
I've just had a little dish of the vanilla version, and it's excellent. I bought it for the same price as the other H-D "regular" ice creams, i.e. around $3, like another poster here. I believe the $7 quoted in this article is incorrect-- REALLY incorrect! I wonder where the writer bought it? Alaska?