Thanks to initiatives by major food companies, the eating trend for the next few years will be improved health and portion control (about time!!!). Three biggies-General Mills Inc., Minneapolis, Kraft Foods Inc., Northfield, Ill., and PepsiCo Inc., Purchase, N.Y.-are on board with introductions ranging from formulation improvements to sweetened breakfast cereals, to turning calorically dense American institutions into snacking options for calorie counters (see sidebar).
Before you decide to mix and blend, swirl and crunch, there are some things you need to know about adding inclusions to frozen desserts. The fact is, there is more to including inclusions than simply adding standard ingredients into a frozen dessert base.
From yogurt to buttermilk and Cheddar to ricotta cheeses, a key step in the manufacture of these very different dairy foods is lowering pH though the development or addition
of acid.
Rumor has it that the trend will continue regarding addition rather than omission when it comes to food selection. In other words, consumers will be eating certain foods for what they contain rather than for what they do not. That includes carbohydrates and fats.
Health and wellness, combined with carbohydrate consciousness, is what we have seen in 2004 in the dairy foods category. Take all these descriptors, mix in innovation in formula, package and marketing efforts and you have this year's top new dairy foods.