'Slow churning' technology improves light ice cream.

Light ice cream generally tends to be light on delight as well as calories, but Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream says it has developed a "slow churned" method of making ice cream that produces a "light" product with the taste and texture of full-fat ice cream.

Dreyer's, a Nestle company headquartered in Oakland, California, USA, spent five years developing the process. Between research and development and marketing, it will have spent $100 million by 2005 on the new ice cream, said T. Gary Rogers, Dreyer's chairman and chief executive officer. Most flavors are already available in stores; the rest will be in distribution throughout North America later this summer.

In a bid to counter declining sales of light me cream, Dreyer's is using the new technology in its Dreyer's Grand Light (available west of the Rockies in the United States) and Edy's Grand Light (available east of the Rockies). The company saw a 75% increase in light sales during test marketing of slow-churned ice cream in the last year.

In the slow churning process, fat molecules are kneaded at a colder temperature, stretching and distributing them widely so the ice cream tastes as if it contains more butterfat, even though the ingredients are the same as in the company's old Dreyer's Light variety. Eight of ten consumers in blind taste tests, the company said, concluded the new variety was either a full-fat premium or super-premium ice cream.

Besides classic flavors such as plain Vanilla and Chocolate, Dreyer's Grand and Edy's Grand Light will be available in Butter Pecan, Chocolate Chip, Cookie Dough, Cookies 'N Cream, Eggnog (Seasonal Limited Edition), French Vanilla, French Silk, Fudge Tracks. Mint Chocolate Chips, Mocha Almond Fudge (Dreyer's only), Neapolitan, Pumpkin (Seasonal Limited Edition), Rocky Road and Strawberry.