Free Greater's Ice Cream by Robin Davis Heigel Page B

being locally produced.
    Richard points out that being somewhat recession-proof has been something of a hallmark of Graeter’s. Even during the Great Depression, Graeter’s endured and even expanded. “You’ll pinch pennies, maybe not go out for dinner. But ice cream is happy. You can take the family out for ice cream and for a dollar or two more have the best of the best.”
S TIFF C OMPETITION
    The ice cream market is more competitive than ever. While sales of ice cream in the United States are expected to grow from $24.6 billion to $26.5 billion by 2014, overall the market is considered fairly saturated. The per capita rate of consumption of ice cream has gone down from 22 quarts in 2001 to 20.1 quarts in 2009.
    Few truly new innovations have come to market, with the exception of Dippin’ Dots, small beads of ice cream flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen. They were introduced in 1991 and have become popular at malls and sports venues but remain a relatively small part of the market. Mix-in stores, such as Cold Stone Creamery and Marble Slab, are another niche market in the ice cream business.
    Frozen yogurt is starting to make a strong return with the introduction of new soft serve frozen yogurt shops such as Pinkberry and Red Mango. Sales growth of ice cream didn’t quite reach 3 percent from 2005 to 2009, but frozen yogurt sales grew almost 9 percent during the same period.
    But in the frozen dessert market, ice cream remains king. The ice cream market can still be divided into four categories: economy (low milk fat, high overrun), regular (higher quality but still bargain-priced), premium (higher milk fat and lower overrun; includes branded and private labels) and super-premium (with high milk fat and very low overrun). In addition, a new category, known as artisan, now exists. Many cities have local ice cream makers turning out fine products, such as Madisono’s Gelato in Cincinnati and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream in Columbus.
    Richard says that artisan products, however, are a different niche in the ice cream market than Graeter’s. In fact, he thinks Graeter’s doesn’t truly fit into any of the categories. “Graeter’s is a niche in and of itself,” he said.
    The company is still family owned, the ice cream is made the old-fashioned way and, unlike Jeni’s with its exotic flavors such as Cherry Lambic and Salty Caramel, Graeter’s flavors are “good, old American flavors.” The most exotic flavor at Graeter’s, Richard says, is the black raspberry chocolate chip, which also happens to be the company’s number-one seller.
    Manufacturers of all kinds of ice cream compete fiercely for space in the grocery store freezer. The two biggest super-premium brands remain Häagen Dazs (owned by Nestle) and Ben & Jerry’s (owned by Unilever). Together, Nestle and Uniliver own roughly 44 percent of the entire U.S. ice cream market. National brands have deep marketing pockets and snazzier packaging to achieve name recognition with consumers. These companies can also attach to trends quickly, as in the reduced-fat ice cream market.
    A health and wellness revolution has caused ice cream producers to add ingredients with perceived health benefits, such as probiotics and omega-3 oils, to their ice cream so they can tout the “healthfulness” of their ice cream.
    Another trend continues to be the removal of “bad” ingredients such as fat and sugar. National brands, as well as other Ohio ice cream producers such as Pierre’s in Cleveland and Velvet Ice Cream in Utica near Columbus, have capitalized on the low-fat segment by adding more flavors of their “slow-churned,” low-fat varieties. A half-cup serving of Edy’s Slow-Churned ice cream (Edy’s is owned by Nestle and sold in western states as Dreyer’s) contains a little more than a third of the calories and a quarter of the fat of a half-cup serving of