Just Say `Yo`

Spiffed Up With A Healthful Image, Frozen Yogurt Is This Summer`s Sweet Sensation

July 27, 1989|By Pat Dailey.

To every American who feels guilty about his or her ice cream addiction, to those weekend warriors who run, bike, swim or aerobicize just to atone for their periodic over-indulgences, and to everyone who likes a sweet, cool, creamy treat to fend off the summer swelter, try this new motto on for size:

Just say ``Yo.``

Yogurt that is. Soft-serve frozen yogurt is one of the hottest-or make that coldest-food trends to sweep the nation this summer. After building up increasing momentum over the last several years, frozen yogurt finally has hit its mark. Specialty yogurt stores are sprouting up hither and yon and there are more flavors than the proverbial 31.

Frozen yogurt consumption already accounts for double-digit increases in what is reported to be a $2-billion-dollar-a-year industry, according to the National Ice Cream Mix Association. Sales of frozen yogurt have increased by 50 percent each year for the last two years, says Howard Waxman of Find SVP, a market research firm in New York City.

If you don`t believe it, just stand in line at a yogurt store at lunch time and count how many people are ahead of you. One? You`re early. Five?

You`re lucky. Fifteen, 20 or more, that`s more like it.

Insiders predict that this is only the beginning. Estimates are that only 30 percent of Americans have tasted frozen yogurt. So far.

To call this a yogurt craze almost seems a bit misleading. More accurately, it is an offshoot of the soft-serve ice-cream craze, only this time it is spiffed up with a healthful image. According to Paul Lesko, regional sales manager for Yo Cream, frozen yogurt is a carefully developed product that, in effect, lets people have their cake and eat it too.

``Americans don`t want tart and tangy yogurt as we know it, they want a guilt-free indulgence, a low-calorie, low-fat stand-in for ice cream,`` he says. He is hardly alone in the sentiment. Most yogurt manufacturers concur on that point. America wants ice-cream taste and yogurt calories and nutrition to justify their indulgence.

Frozen yogurt isn`t exactly new. It has tried to muscle its way into the snack and dessert market several times in the past but was beaten back by America`s sweet tooth and unswerving devotion to ice cream. Barbara Beck, manager of consumer affairs at Dannon, reports that in the late 1960s, the company introduced Danny Freeze in outlet shops as kind of a partner to the cup yogurt that was just beginning to show up in American supermarkets at the same time. Although it was rated highly by consumers, yogurt still was brand new to Americans and there was a lot to learn. Dannon decided to devote its resources to expanding the market for cup yogurt instead of the frozen variety.

In the mid-1970s, with yogurt nicely settled into its own comfortable niche, Dannon tried frozen yogurt again, this time calling it Danny-Yo and advertising it with a cute little bear.

But America still wasn`t ready for soft frozen yogurt. The health and fitness craze, a big source of fuel for today`s yogurt boom, still was several years away from peaking, and that was only half the problem. The other was the yogurt itself. It tasted like yogurt, which meant it had a tart, tangy edge, an inherent characteristic of cultured yogurt. American taste runs

overwhelmingly to the sweet side. What people really wanted was a stand in for premium ice cream. Finally they`ve got it.

Because the very word yogurt still manages to elicit images of good health and longevity, few people stop to question whether this cool, creamy stuff really is any better for them than ice cream. Well, sure, the signs say it`s low calorie and doesn`t have a lot of fat or cholesterol, but is it really as nutritious as those containers of plain yogurt?

Unlike ice cream stores, every yogurt store proudly displays nutritional information, letting would-be splurgers know just how good they really are by opting for yogurt instead of ice cream. ``Half the calories of ice cream`` may sound appealing and downright sleek, but put in the proper context, the numbers aren`t quite as impressive. The ice cream referred to is super premium, the high-end version that is loaded with butterfat and calories. A 4- ounce serving of Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream has 260 calories. Four ounces of Breyer`s has only 150 calories. As for frozen yogurt, 4 ounces of vanilla has anywhere from 95 to 130 calories. Plain, lowfat yogurt, by the way, has about 90 calories in a 4-ounce serving and milk has 75 calories.

Frozen yogurt waves another big nutritional banner that catches lots of attention. Cholesterol and fat are death words to dieters and the health conscious. Ice cream is loaded with them, frozen yogurt isn`t. While a 4-ounce serving of premium ice cream can have as much as 17 grams of fat, regular low- fat yogurt has from 2 grams to 4 grams of fat per serving and can go as low as zero in the nonfat versions. With such a virtuous point of view, it kind of makes you wonder if oat bran cones aren`t just around the corner.