PL Dairy Diary
Aldi goes upscale with artisan cheeses like garden vegetable & sweet basil.
Cheeses, ice creams and yogurts you won’t believe.
Artisan cheeses. Dream flavor ice cream. Pro-biotic yogurts. They’re all cutting edge dairy products, and they’re all in store brands. But they aren’t all where you might expect to find them.
Those artisan cheeses, for example, are under the edenVale label at Aldi, Batavia, IL, where ordinary cheeses are marketed under the Happy Farms brand, but hand-crafted cheeses like garden vegetable & sweet basil and garlic chive & spring dill are far from ordinary.
Aldi, a discount grocery chain devoted primarily to private label at rock-bottom prices, has a chic side to it, as witness its Grandessa premium brand. That chic side also comes out in Edenvale, which, besides the artisan cheeses, features upscale items like brie and camembert tubs and even goat cheese logs, sliced havarti and gouda, smoked deli cheeses (Swiss, cheddar and pepper jack) and cheese spreads (cheddar, garlic & herb and garden vegetable).
A few other notable developments in cheese and other refrigerated dairy items include Private Selection block cheese at Kroger, Cincinnati, OH, that is co-branded with Cabot; a mozzarella hot salami roll under the Primo Taglio brand at Safeway, Pleasanton, CA; and finishing butters like chipotle lime at Wegmans, Rochester, NY.
At Supervalu, Eden Prairie, MN, ice cream dreams came true this year. Three Supervalu employees were named winners of the Stone Ridge Creamery Name Your Dream Flavor Sweepstakes, for dreaming up three new flavors: Twisted Pretzel, Red Velvet Cake, and Italian Kiss.
As winners of the Stone Ridge Creamery Name Your Dream Flavor Sweepstakes, the three Supervalu employees will receive free ice cream for a year, a $500 gift card, and have their flavor added to the company’s product lineup – with their caricatures featured on the corresponding cartons.
The winners – Tom Lindberg, Amy Youngblood, and Joe Agrusa – were handpicked from a pool of 1,500 Supervalu employees who last year submitted their dream ice cream flavors. Each of them got $500 gift cards and a year’s supply of free ice cream – and their flavors are now being marketed nationwide at a suggested retail price of $3.99.
Lindberg, a retail technology specialist for Supervalu’s supply chain services in Minneapolis, submitted the Twisted Pretzel flavor. It features sea salt-infused caramel and crunchy dark chocolate-coated pretzel pieces in vanilla ice cream.
Youngblood, senior business support specialist at Supervalu’s innovation center in Minneapolis, chose the Red Velvet Cake flavor – which the company said is the first of its kind for any major ice cream brand. The ice cream, which is deep red, includes chocolate and cream cheese frosting. Joe Agruse, who works for Supervalu’s operations in Chula Vista, California, is responsible for Italian Kiss – a blend of chocolate ice cream, hazelnut, and dark chocolate chunks.
“To see your dream flavor become a reality – how cool is that?” Stacy Bergmann, Stone Ridge Creamery brand manager, said in a statement. “Supervalu associates’ interest in and support for our new Stone Ridge Creamery brand helped us exceed our sales goals for the brand last year. The sweepstakes was our way of recognizing and thanking our associates for the contributions they made to the brand’s growth.”
North of the border, Toronto, ON-based Loblaw Companies has been trying to create a buzz for its President’s Choice ice cream line with a special Ice Cream Shop site devoted to 14 of its own favorite flavors and inviting shoppers to comment on the flavor of the week. But the reviews were mixed for one of the flavors, Bubble Gum Candy.
One shopper who couldn’t spell very well was super-enthusiastic:
I absolutely love this bubble gum ice cream!! It is so creamy and smooth and the absolute perfect bubble gum flavor! I am happy with the candy bubble gum pieces, much more enjoyable than frozen hard chunks of gum. I hope they keep this one around!! Mmm cant wait to try more flavors!
On the other hand, a shopper who had eagerly awaited the launch was of two minds:
I have been waiting forever for someone to finally market this flavor ice cream and sell at your local grocery store. So I was very excited when I saw this. The flavor is very good, but the gum candy in it tastes horrible and there is way too much of it! This would be great if they just eliminated the candy.
A third shopper was super analytical:
I’ve always hated the bubble gum ice cream with real gum bits in it because the gum freezes and becomes impossible to chew and when it does get soft, it gets cements itself to my teeth. There used to be a bubble gum ice cream here (my favorite ice cream) on Vancouver Island that didn’t have gum chunks in it but about four years ago, they put real gum in it and after getting gum in my teeth and fillings, I had to give up eating it. So I’m very happy that PC made a bubble gum ice cream that’s just like my favorite and doesn’t have real gum in it!
For the record, the ingredients are sugar, chewy bubble gum candy pieces (enriched wheat flour, sugar, sweetened condensed milk, icing sugar, palm kernel oil, coconut oil, water, modified corn starch, skim milk powder, butter fat, natural and artificial flavor, soy lecithin, colour), glucose solids, modified milk ingredients, natural flavor, mono- and diglycerides, cellulose gum, guar gum, polysorbate 80, carrageenan, color. Ice cream base made with 100% Canadian milk.
Winn-Dixie, Jacksonville, FL, a generally conservative supermarket chain, is out with a new line of organic pre and probiotic yogurts that target consumers seeking products with added health benefits. Winn-Dixie Organic Active Yogurts are all-natural, with no artificial preservatives or flavors; probiotics and prebiotics help support digestion.
The yogurts are USDA-Certified Organic and Kosher-Certified OU-D. Other health benefits include heart-healthy omega-3s, bone-building calcium and vitamin D, and three grams of fiber per serving. All are low-fat and have 150 calories or less per serving. Winn-Dixie says that no other retailer in its operating areas offers a yogurt with all of the same health benefits.
“We are always looking for new ways to provide healthy products for our customers,” said Mary Kellmanson, group vice president of marketing. “Our organic line continues to expand with new products geared towards improving and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.” The yogurts are available in six-ounce containers in strawberry, blueberry, peach, vanilla and raspberry, and can be found at all 515 Winn-Dixie stores.
