Smaller , richer frozen desserts a new trend

Here's a great article on the latest trend in frozen desserts from an article at QSR Magazine

Cold Case - Why frozen indulgences might warrant a more prominent place on quick-serve menus.

Contentious though it often is, there are a handful of things we can all agree on when it comes to the subject of food. The popularity of ice cream is almost certainly one of them. To wit, the market research firm Mintel has reported that more than 90 percent of U.S. households consume ice cream and other frozen desserts.

But like most indulgences, ice cream in its pure, premium form—with all the butterfat and sugar that make it so tantalizing—tends to leave American adults feeling a little conflicted. We crave its richness, but our society’s obsession with health, diet, and nutrition also forces us to reckon with the consequences of enjoying great ice cream to the degree we might like. No matter how you churn it, downing two or three pints a day just isn’t a good idea. Unfortunately.

So in order to reconcile our ice cream cravings with our calorie consciences, we compromise, often by turning to products made with low-fat dairy products and/or sugar substitutes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has noted that light, low-fat, nonfat, and reduced-fat ice cream products, along with frozen yogurt, ices, sorbets, and sherbets, accounted for about one-third of the domestic frozen dessert market in 2006.

The alternative to eating lighter products, of course, is to enjoy smaller quantities of the really good stuff. To judge from a recent National Restaurant Association survey of culinary experts, this seems to be the track many Americans are now taking. In that poll, 1,300 members of the American Culinary Federation were asked to identify the most popular food trends from among a list of 194 items, including everything from red wine to sushi to energy drinks, pomegranates, fresh pasta, and couscous. At the end of the day, “bite-size desserts” emerged at the very top of the list, in the No. 1 spot.

If small indulgences that deliver big flavor constitute the trend of the moment, quick-serve operators might consider how they might tap into the phenomenon. Here are a few suggestions:

Smaller and Richer

When I lived in Paris years ago, I used to love to go to Bertillon Ice Cream where, for the equivalent of roughly $7 at the time, patrons would order a scoop about the size of a golf ball, served with a miniature wooden spoon. That worked out to about $5.50 per ounce, but this ice cream was worth every cent. With its authentic, intense, and perfectly balanced flavors; sumptuous, creamy texture; and lush mouth feel that made for a positively sublime experience, I would have anted up at least a few more francs for the privilege of another serving.

That’s ultimately why I believe that it might be a good bet for quick-serve’s more popular chains to begin offering small scoops of a proprietary, crave-inducing brand of premium ice cream in all-American flavors such as vanilla and peach. The results might be surprisingly tasty—and profitable. In a similar vein, Pasta Pomodoro might opt to sell small portions of authentic sorbet or gelato with Italian-inspired flavors such as bitter chocolate, coffee, hazelnut, almond, or espresso. And though they’re nowhere near as decadent, paletas—icy Mexican fruit pops made with fresh fruit, water or milk, and sugar—offer an engaging variety of textures and tastes, including tropical fruits, hibiscus, tamarind, avocado, corn, lime, and cucumber. At least a few of these could fare very well at the likes of Baja Fresh, Chipotle, or Qdoba.

(see the rest of the article at http://www.qsrmagazine.com/articles/menu_development/116/frozen-1.phtml)