Gearing up for the New Season,
Ice Cream Makers Going Exotic

Langnese hopes to egg on sales with its Egg Liqueur-Vanilla ice cream, rolled out just in time for the Easter holidays.

All you need is love. Or maybe all you need is Cremissimo, like this Amaretto variety from Langnese.

Acting as the “agent of love” as Germany goes into the 2007 ice cream season is Langnese of Hamburg (Fax: +49 40-3490-3520). One of its new Cremissimo flavors is in the “From the Heart” range; another is Amore di Amaretto. On top of that the company is staging a contest to see who can write the best love letter.

Just in time for Easter, Langnese had already extended its premium Cremissimo line with a new ice cream flavor, Egg Liqueur-Vanilla. The mixture of creamy vanilla ice cream, flavored with an egg liqueur sauce and topped off with shaved bits of chocolate, comes in a 900- ml tub recommended for retail at 2.99 euros.

Osnabrück-based Roncadin (Fax: +49-541-9999-200), too, is presenting ice cream hearts, little chocolate-coated ones that come 12 to a box that retails for 1.99 euros. And the love theme is only one of the ideas that have been put into play as the big players compete fiercely for the public’s favor. Roncadin is also pushing creaminess, pleasing the children and offering healthy ice cream that either contains vitamins or is safe for people with health problems.

Cremissimo promoters are working together with a hit TV reality show called Nur die Liebe Zählt. The show’s Beatles-era theme song, All You Need is Love, is a pretty good translation of the title. Among other things, contestants try to win partners, or reconcile with partners, through original love letters or love songs.

Hearts to be cut out will soon be appearing on Cremissimo packages, and anyone who assembles three of them is eligible to submit a love letter or song for judging. The best ones win a weekend for two in Paris, five dancing courses for two, and 50 gift certificates for bouquets.

Gartenfrucht Sommereis (Gardenfruit) is another new line of ice cream from Roncadin under the Landliebe brand.

Hearts also played a role last year when Cremissimo introduced its Vom Herzen (From the Heart) range. The Erste Liebe (First Love) flavor, still on the market, pictures a heart of strawberry ice cream and strawberry sauce, surrounded by vanilla ice cream with little chocolate hearts embedded in it. Other Vom Herzen flavors picture “Cloud Seven” and a pair of “come hither” lips in ice cream.

This year’s new Vom Herzen entry is called Frühlingsgefühl (Spring Feeling) and pictures a butterfly of red cherry ice cream surrounded by creamy yogurt ice cream and bits of chocolate.

The love theme is carried on still further in Amore di Amaretto, Langnese Cremissimo’s latest attempt to profit from Germany’s ongoing love of Italian-flavored ice cream. The new entry features creamy vanilla and hazelnut ice cream shot through with a sauce from that almond liqueur and decorated with bits of amaretto cookies.

With the new product Langnese hopes to build on the success it achieved last year by introducing Tiramisu and Momento di Cappuccino ice cream. The Italian flavors also come in 900-ml tubs, suggested for retail at 2.99 euros.

The Tiramisu is also being used in new range, “Mein Cremissimo” mini cups for the growing singles segment of the market. Studies show that 37% of German households are single-person units, making it the biggest household group. It is also a group with considerable buying power.

Tiramisu, one of four flavors being offered in 200-ml cups, is based on a celebrated Italian dessert featuring ladyfingers, coffee, cocoa, marsala wine, eggs and rum. Other flavors are Passione di Cioccolato, with white and dark chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate bits; Amarena Romantica, with creamy vanilla ice cream, cherry sauce and bits of white chocolate, and Erbeer-Vanilla Traum, a “strawberry-vanilla dream” with strawberry sauce.

The Schatztruhe (Treasure Chest) brand from Roncadin is the only one that the company aims exclusively at children. As usual, it deals with piracy, and this year the kids get two items on a stick that were well known to the buccaneers of old. There is a chocolate-coated bone right off the Jolly Roger, and a saber, with a “grip” of chocolate ice cream and a “blade” of vanilla shot through with strawberry sauce.

Both Schatztruhe items come in multipacks, with six of the sabers and eight of the bones, and are suggested for retail at 2.49 to 2.79 euros. As always, the Schatztruhe package pictures the junior buccaneer Kapt’n Cool and his friends. It also contains a prize and features game suggestions and contests.

The main new offering under Roncadin’s Landliebe range is Gartenfrucht Sommereis, flavored with the “garden fruits” blackberry, raspberry, blueberry and strawberry, plus a “garden fruit” sauce. It comes in an environmentally friendly 750-ml paper tub.

Nasch, another brand from Roncadin, was originally for diabetics. But it started in 2005 to aim also at the previously ignored 15% of the German population that is allergic to the milk sugar lactose. New this season are both “Laktosfrei Vanille” in a 750-ml tub and a multipack of four lactose-free cups – two vanilla and two strawberry. All contain only six percent fat and are sweetened with natural fructose.
Nasch’s sunny yellow package, which customers have come to recognize, has also been reworked. Roncadin has been quite successful in serving diabetics since 2000, controlling 70% of the market. Sales in 2006 were up 8.5 percent over the previous year.

Nestlé Schöller of Frankfurt (Fax: + 49 69-6671-3190), meanwhile, is out with a wide range of new products, among other things building on two of the successes it had last season in appealing to the public’s growing concern with wellness.

Emphasizing a new process under which, Nestlé says, its premium Mövenpick line contains much less fat with no compromise on taste, the company is also adding two new flavors to Schöller’s Frubetto range of buttermilk or yogurt ice cream with big chunks of fruit.

The Mövenpick success was achieved through the so-called “conchier” process, under which the ice cream is slowly frozen while being stirred in two waves. This, the producer says, gives the ice cream desired creaminess without the large ice crystals that previously were needed. Far less fat is required for the process – between 30% and 40% less, depending on the flavor.

Last year’s conversion of the classic Mövenpick varieties Bourbon Vanilla, Chocolate Chip and Maple Walnut to the conchiered method has led, the company says, to both an increase in sales and a broadening of the pool of potential customers.

In view of this success, Nestlé-Schöller is converting four more flavors to the conchier process, this time in its optically pleasing “decorative” segment. They are Cioccolata Straccietella, with chocolate bits; Caramel Brûlée, with a caramel cocktail; Marzipan Chocolate, and Chocolate Rum-Grape-Nut. Each of these now has less than 10% fat.

There were four offerings in Schöller’s initial Frubetto launch: Yogurt Waldfrucht, with chunks of berry; Buttermilch Pfirsich, featuring chunks of peach; Buttermilch Kirsch-Erdbeer, with both cherries and strawberries; and Joghurt Lemon-Apfel, with apple chunks. They were well received, having less than three percent fat and being free of chemical additives.

So two new flavors are now being added to the Frubetto range: Quark Erdbeer-Rhabarber, with chunks of strawberry and rhubarb, and Joghurt, Vanille-Brombeer, with chunks of blackberry. The 500-gram tub in which the Frubetto comes is in line with a trend toward a smaller packaging to suit smaller households.

Once again this year, Mövenpick will have its “EisCreation des Sommers.” The 2007 offering is the exotic Madagascar Vanilla Papaya, combining vanilla ice cream, papaya fruit ice and a mango-passion fruit cocktail with almond splinters.

The Ice Creation of the Summer will be distributed in several forms; in Mövenpick’s usual, wave-shaped 900-ml household pack, as well as in a 200-ml mini-cup. In addition, it will be available on an extra crisp almond cone – either as an individual impulse item or in a three-cone multipack.

Schöller’s Frubetto is also present for the impulse market; this year in the form of Frubetto Vivana Joghurt Pfirsich on a stick. It features chunks of peach in yogurt ice cream, and, at only 4.3% fat, is OK for diabetics.

Premium ice cream is also available on a stick. Mövenpick is presenting the impulse market with Macao White Dream and Macao Schoko & Brownies. The former is a mixture of cheesecake-flavored ice cream, raspberry cocktail and chunks of cookie in a white coating. Schoko & Brownies offers chocolate ice cream with chunks of brownie in a dark coating with white stripes.

Schöller offers several multipacks. In line with the snack trend it is out with Pops, vanilla ice cream minis with a dark coating that can be taken directly from the box. Another multipack contains eight of the Brausespass lemon ice creams on a stick. They contain a fizzy raspberry powder that tickles the tongue.

Then there is the multipack containing six Spider-Man treats on a stick, timed for the release of the movie Spider-Man 3. The ice cream is blue and the coating is laced with “spiderwebs.” This is also available as an impulse item.

Yet another impulse item timed to a movie release is the Pirate. You get his head on a stick, with his hat formed by the chocolate coating and his eye patch and beard of chocolate ice cream. The product’s appearance will coincide with the debut in movie theaters of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.