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Ice cream heating up in 2015

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The year is proving hot for soft serve ice cream, with Frosty Boy Australia predicting its own production to grow between 15 and 20 per cent in the next 12 months.

Frosty Boy manufactures the equivalent of two million serves of soft serve ice cream daily for the domestic and international market and Frosty Boy’s national sales and marketing manager, Felipe Demartini, said the figure was expected to increase.

“Our plant is currently operating at 60 per cent capacity, so there is still plenty of room to grow and expand our client base,” he said.

Demartini said the growth was attributed to Australians continuing to enjoy the cold dessert, while being curious to try new flavours.

Frosty Boy, which relocated to Yatala on the Gold Coast last year, manufactures a versatile soft serve ice cream powder base.

“Australians consume the most soft serve ice cream per capita in the world and this year I expect this to grow as consumers continue to enjoy mainstream flavours such as Frosty Boy’s Classic Vanilla, while opening their minds and palates to unique flavours,” Demartini said.

“I believe the current soft serve ice cream flavour trends can be split into two markets with the first trend targeted to the premium soft serve market exploring indulgent flavours such as Belgium chocolate and salted caramel soft serve.

“The second trend is derived from an Asian influence. Over the past six months this trend has grown exponentially and includes green tea or black sesame seed flavoured soft serve ice cream

“Everyone is looking for something different and with the Asian population in Australia increasing, we are seeing this cultural influence filter to dessert.”

Demartini said flavours this year would share a closer link to seasons or special days such as Valentine’s Day.

“There is a huge trend towards ‘red velvet’ across all desserts and we predict this to be more prominent in the soft serve market as we get closer to Valentine’s Day,” he said.

“Similarly, as we get closer to Easter there will be demand for decadent, rich chocolate soft serve ice cream.”

With Frosty Boy’s versatile soft serve ice cream base, Demartini said the flavour possibilities were endless and he expected flavours to continue to have an international influence.

“The dessert market is constantly changing and in 2016 we could expect sweet pumpkin from America or sweet corn from South America to be part of soft serve trend flavours,” he said.

“Whatever the flavour required, the beauty of our bases is they are highly flexible and with our research and development team, we can develop the right product for each target market.”

As the soft serve ice cream market continues to grow and meet demands of dessert lovers across Australia, consumers are likely to enjoy the sweet treat at more locations.

“Australian companies are continuing to realise the value soft serve provides businesses,” Mr Demartini said.

“One of our clients is a quick service restaurant network in Australia. Traditionally the network has not incorporated soft serve ice cream into their menu, however, they realise the product is a way to expand their profit margin.

“This network has decided to run a soft serve ice cream trial in some of its stores with our product and if it proves popular among its customer base, it will become a permanent offer.”

 

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