Why Does Frozen Yogurt Contain Sugar?

Plas Farm LTD

We recently welcomed back Rhian Williams, Director of Plas Farm, to our roster of frozen yogurt industry experts. Rhian became involved with the IFYA early on and we are thrilled to have her back as our expert in the European and Middle Eastern frozen yogurt markets.

Plas Farm is the UK’s leading frozen yogurt manufacturer and a leading exporter, earning the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Excellence in International Trade in 2014.

The following article is the contribution of Rhian Williams.

Why does frozen yogurt contain sugar?

By Rhian Williams

As frozen yogurt developers and manufacturers in Europe, we at Plas Farm are asked about sugar all the time: to produce a sugar free frozen yogurt, to produce a “no added sugar” frozen yogurt, or just to reduce the sugar content in certain frozen yogurt recipes. We also get asked things like “why can’t we have a low sugar frozen yogurt?” “can’t we use another sweetener instead of sugar?” and “why does frozen yogurt have higher sugar than normal yogurt?” We also have to compete with the myth that frozen yogurt is just ice cream with loads more sugar. It’s NOT!

There are two key factors that impact upon the development of a sugar free product in the European Union.

  1. Product texture
  2. Legislation (EU Food Labelling Regulations)

So, texture. If you put water or milk in the freezer, it turns into ice – very, very hard, right? Ice cream and frozen yogurt are softer and scoopable. This is because we add what are called “solids” into the milk. These solids (fats and sugars predominantly, because protein tends to fall out of solution and create sandiness) bind with the water molecules to form different structures. This different structure means that there is less “free water” to freeze hard like ice. So, in order to create a product that doesn’t freeze into a solid ice-like block, there must be SOMETHING there to alter the liquid’s properties. The best molecules at doing this are sugars and fats. Typical! So that’s the first reason that frozen yogurt contains sugar, to make it scoopable straight from the freezer.

Now the legislation. Let me start by outlining the EU regulations* on sugar content labelling.

Sugar Free

Product contains no more than 0.5 g of sugars per 100 g or 100 ml.

Low Sugar

Product contains no more than 5 g of sugars per 100 g for solids or 2.5 g of sugars per 100 ml for liquids.

No Added Sugar

A claim stating that sugars have not been added to a food may only be made where the product does not contain any added mono- or disaccharides or any other food used for its sweetening properties. If sugars are naturally present in the food, the following indication should also appear on the label: ‘CONTAINS NATURALLY OCCURRING SUGARS.’

So what does this mean? It means that even skimmed milk alone cannot be called sugar free or low sugar, due to the naturally occurring lactose sugar in milk. Milk is the major ingredient in yogurt and frozen yogurt, and skimmed milk with nothing added has 5g of sugars per 100ml, so a sugar free or low sugar product in the EU is challenging to say the least! I say challenging, not impossible. We have created a low sugar recipe, using concentrated whey protein instead of milk to create yogurt, but obviously this is expensive and whey is highly processed in comparison to milk.

The other key part of the legislation is the part that specifies that “no added sugars” means all mono- and di-glycerides, so it is not possible to just replace sugar with another sweetener, for example apple juice, date syrup or agave syrup, and call it “no added sugar.” Doing so would be illegal.

And that’s why frozen yogurt contains sugar. It’s part naturally occurring sugars from the milk and fruit purees, and part to stop the product freezing as hard as ice.

There is a myth that frozen yogurt contains MORE sugar than ice cream. That is certainly not the case for Plas Farm Frozen Yogurt; in fact, the sugar content is very similar, yet frozen yogurt has much less fat. For example, our extra tart soft serve has 20g per 100g (of which 7g is lactose from milk), and our vanilla retail “take home” froyo has 21g per 100g (of which 9g is lactose from milk). Pinkberry has 21g per 100g in their original soft serve. This can be compared to Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream at 21g per 100g, or cookie dough at 25g, or Blue Bell’s homemade vanilla ice cream comes in at 24g per 100g. Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream is the outlier, with 14g per 100g of sugar, but then with a whopping 17g of fat per 100g compared to frozen yogurt’s less than 3g (or even non-fat), there is obviously a large trade-off between sugar and fat made here. When you look at Haagen Dazs flavours, such as vanilla caramel brownie, the sugar content is back at the roughly 20g mark, while retaining the 15g+ fat content.

This is just a brief look at the leading brands, but it just goes to show that it is a myth that frozen yogurt contains more sugar than ice cream. At worst, they are very similar in sugar content, but when you factor in the added benefits of yogurt, such as the lower calories, increased fibre, and the live and active cultures, it is clear that froyo can still claim to be healthier than ice cream.

*As listed in the annex of EU Food Labelling Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006.

About Rhian

Rhian is a Director at Plas Farm Ltd, a company that she has worked at since the age of about 4! Yogurt production started on her father’s farm in the 1980s, and in the 30 years since, Plas Farm has grown to become one of Europe’s leading frozen yogurt manufacturers. Rhian’s focus is on business development, and she has worked with private brand partners to develop some of Europe’s most successful frozen yogurt brands, in both the foodservice and retail sectors. With extensive experience in product development and (literally!) a lifetime of involvement in the European frozen yogurt market, she is well placed to offer insight into frozen yogurt’s growth in European and Middle Eastern markets.