Breyers has remained in the ice cream business since 1866. Many Americans recognized Breyers to provide all-natural and quality ice cream before Breyers joined Unilever. Now, Breyers can no longer label their products as ice cream as they cannot meet the legal qualifications of ice cream.

Breyers ice cream rebranded its most famous flavors to Breyers frozen dairy desserts due to their low milk and cream content as the FDA only considers products with a minimum of 10% dairy milkfat as ice cream. 

The Subtle and Surprising Shift in Breyers 

Consistently known for their claims in selling all-natural and quality ice cream, Breyers was a favorite among many people before they labeled their ice cream as frozen dairy desserts. With that said, Breyers shifted their ice cream to frozen dairy desserts as their ice cream no longer meets the FDA’s regulations for ice cream.

Butter pecan and other popular Breyers flavors like cookies & cream, chocolate chip cookie dough, and rocky road are now called frozen dairy dessert. The change in name is because Breyers changed the ingredients, and legally they can no longer call their product ice cream.

Mary Bach

FDA stated that for a product to be qualified as ice cream, it needs to have a minimum of 10% dairy milkfat and must contain less than 100% overrun while weighing a minimum of 4.5 lbs per gallon. Breyers frozen dairy desserts do not meet FDA’s requirements due to their ingredients and excessive overrun. (Source: Brand Eating) 

The History of Breyers and Its Frozen Dairy Desserts

Breyers has consistently served quality ice cream characterized by its delicious flavors and smooth creaminess. Delivering ice cream since 1866, Breyers started growing its business in Philadelphia as a family business. Numerous years later, Breyers became part of one of the largest food manufacturing companies in America, Kraft.

Then, in 1993, Breyers became part of Unilever, a conglomerate that owns more than 400 brands of various products, ranging from bath products to food. When Unilever bought Breyers, they first moved the company to Green Bay, Wisconsin, after transferring it to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 

Nick Soukas, the Brand Building Director for America’s Unilever ice cream, stated that Breyers frozen dairy desserts directly satisfied the customers’ wants. In a New York Times article written in 2013, Mr. Soukas expressed that people drove the frozen dairy desserts’ production, explaining that people wanted a smoother texture from numerous taste tests; thus, they created the frozen dairy desserts.

And although Mr. Soukas claims that Breyers natural ice cream and Breyers vanilla frozen dairy dessert contains the same ingredients, their ingredient list says otherwise, with Breyers dairy dessert ingredient list containing much more preservatives. (Source: The New York Times) 

The old real ice cream product has milk and cream as the first two ingredients. The new version has cream listed as fourth (with milk, sugar, and corn syrup predominating over cream). The new product also has half the fat as the old. While dieters might rejoice, the calories are nearly the same, and the taste is not likely to match the original.

Edgar, Mr Consumer

(Source: Mouse Print)