Creamy Dairy Rules!
It's the secret ingredient in
many crave-able foods...
If you love ice cream, but
don’t understand the appeal of sorbet, you subconsciously appreciate the
wonders of dairy fat. It’s that secret ingredient that makes good things
taste great; in many cases, by counter-balancing the tanginess of acidic foods,
in all cases, by adding mouthfeel and
flavor-carry.
Lifesavers™,
added a creamy dairy component to their traditional, one-dimensionally sweet
hard candy. The result is CremeSavers and they are a huge success. Why? In
short, it’s LifeSavers’ response to our ever-increasing “fat
tooth,”; our insatiable craving for fatty foods. While hard candies
alone are a nice treat, fruity flavored varieties don’t become truly
indulgent until you add fat.
Tropicana sells the
country’s most popular orange juice. And recently they took the plunge by
adding a dairy component to their juices. They have introduced a line of
smoothies they claim are “rich, creamy” and “combine real
fruit with
yogurt.”
CremeSavers
= Hard Candy +
Dairy
Tropicana’s
Smoothies =Fruit +
Dairy
Classico Tomato
Alfredo = Tomato +
Dairy
But it’s
not only in sweet categories that this phenomenon is happening. Today’s
hedonist is enjoying Tomato Alfredo--a blend of tomato sauce and cream
sauce—as the entry point into pasta indulgence. The next step is complete
submission to a delicious Alfredo or creamy 4 Cheese sauce. Pasta doesn’t
own indulgence, though, with rice right on its heels. Rice-A-Roni has recently
launched a line of Cheesy Pleasers, a creamy, cheesy version of the old standby
side dish. It’s a logical extension, one that should be a success based
on our love of creamy
foods.
Which brings
me to my favorite example of this phenomenon: Starbucks. What did Starbucks do
to coffee that moved it from boring to big biz? They realized that they are not
selling coffee. Nope. Starbucks sells dairy fat and sugar. If you doubt me,
go stand in a Starbucks store and watch how many people order creamy Lattes,
Mochas, Macchiatos, and Frappucinos versus plain old brewed coffee. It’s
the dairy component that has made Starbucks the crave-able, mid-afternoon treat
that is has
become.
So what does
this added dairy and dairy fat do for our waistlines? You guessed it. A
regular 5 Flavor Lifesaver hard candy has 20 calories per serving. A serving of
rich and creamy CremeSavers Strawberries and Crème candy has 60. A serving
of Classico Tomato Sauce has 50 calories versus Tomato Alfredo at 80. And
Starbucks? Let’s not even think about how many calories are in my beloved
Venti Caramel
Frappucino!
So are
there other products that may follow in the “fat tooth” footsteps?
You betcha. I’ll bet creamy jams and jellies aren’t far away.
Creamy Jell-O? Maybe. But the one thing I’m dreaming of is creamy
carbonated drinks. Yum. Indulgence with fizz!
Posted: Mon - March 21, 2005 at 09:57 PM