The Year in Froyo, Reviewing Key Froyo Events in 2015

It’s been an eventful year for the frozen yogurt industry. Let’s take a look back at the year in froyo, focusing on newsworthy events and new froyo spoons of course.

New Frozen Yogurt Mix Brands

California Cultures, carried by Reliant Foodservice, offers premium frozen yogurt mixes, including a line of organic frozen yogurt mixes.

Flavormine, distributed by Reliant Foodservice, has ten years of experience making premium frozen yogurt and recently launched its own line of premium liquid frozen yogurt made with California milk in a Kosher certified facility in Southern California.

American Food Mix focuses on providing American made premium frozen yogurt and gelato mixes to the international market.

Soft Serve Gelato at Froyo Shops

Honey Hill Farms/Sugar Creek Foods introduced soft serve gelato in 2014. This year Dannon YoCream introduced its soft serve gelato line with three flavors: chocolate, hazelnut and pistachio. Yogurtland’s soft serve gelato has live and active cultures; the first Yogurtland gelato was Peanut Nougat with Almond Butter and Honey, introduced during 2015’s Third Annual Flavor Quest. During the Candy Crush promotion, Yogurtland introduced Salted Caramel Hazelnut gelato.

We also spotted soft serve, self-serve gelato at gelato shops like Ci Gusta and N’ice Cream.

From Sorbet to Soft Serve Fruit

While frozen yogurt shops have long offered non-dairy sorbets, the new form of soft serve fruit from Chloe’s Soft Serve Fruit and Pinkberry’s Just Fruit has fewer ingredients and is all natural. It’s mainly fruit. Pinkberry’s Just Fruit has no added sugar while Chloe’s has a touch of organic cane sugar.

Breakfast Expansion

16 Handles introduced a day time menu of breakfast items (build your own bowls of acai, yogurt and oatmeal) in February. Yogurtland began testing breakfast items like croissants, Awesome acai bowls, Fresh Yo Greek yogurt, juices, Cinnaffles, Croiffles, danish and coffee. The first test site was in Lakewood, CA and additional sites were added later (all in Southern California). The new froyo sauce/syrup machines stocked with Magic Shell, peanut butter sauce and cookie butter sauce make their way to other Yogurtland locations.

New Limited Edition Froyo Spoons

  • Menchie’s: Menchie’s PAN blue pirate spoon, Color changing Magic Spoons (Menchie as an Astronaut, Menchie as a Rock Star, Menchie as a Wizard), Alvin & the Chipmunks red Alvin spoon
  • Yogen Fruz Mexico: Hello Kitty spoons
  • Yogurtland: Hershey’s NFYD chocolate bar spoon, Candy Crush spoons (5 designs: orange soda, blue teddy bear, purple flower, red candy fish, blue candy ball)

Timeline of Newsworthy Froyo Events

  • January 5: The Yogurtland 2nd Annual Fan Choice Awards, fans voted to bring back their favorite flavors, with Salted Caramel Pecan taking top honors as Best All-Around
  • January 26: Pinkberry opens its first store in Panamapinkberry_10th_deal
  • January 30: Pinkberry celebrates its 10th birthday with 10 cent froyo and special glitter confetti and edible candles as toppings
  • February 2: Yogurtland celebrates National Frozen Yogurt Day with free froyo and toppings from 4-7 PM and a limited edition Hershey’s chocolate bar spoon
  • February 2: Boxwood Capital Partners acquires sweetFrog
  • February 6: Menchie’s celebrates National Frozen Yogurt Day with free froyo from 4-8 PM, Orange Leaf has a buy one, get one free offer, Forever Yogurt offers free froyo from 12-6 PM
  • February 18: Chloe’s Soft Serve Fruit Co. partners with IFYA to launch the Cool Way to Eat Fruit contest
  • February 25: 16 Handles introduces breakfast bowls: Greek yogurt, acai bowls, hot oatmeal at select locations
  • March 2: Yogurtland’s third annual Flavor Quest brings new internationally inspired flavors like Churro, Cinnamon Coconut and Peanut Nougat with Almond Butter & Honey Gelato (Yogurtland’s first cultured gelato)
  • March 30: Nanci’s Frozen Yogurt and IFYA launch the If Your Flavor Dreams Came True contest
  • April 21: First Pinkberry opens in Thailand, additional locations open this year
  • April 30: U-Swirl acquires Let’s Yo Yogurt
  • May 1: Pinkberry introduces its first dairy-free option, Pinkberry Dairy-Free Mango, additional flavors are added later
  • May 11: Off the Stick at Yogurtland brings 4 new popsicle inspired flavors for the summer
  • June 1: Splatoon inspired flavors arrive at Yogurty’s and Yogen Fruz. Splatoon toppings, demos and prizes are part of the summer promotion
  • June 5: Red Mango 4 Life Sweepstakes kicks off with daily and weekly prizes, Cynthia Croom wins the grand prize of Red Mango for life
  • June 25: Menchie’s opens its 500th store menchies 500
  • July 1: Menchie’s launches the Summer Sorbet Extravaganza with six new featured sorbet flavors to be featured in July
  • July 6: Yogurtland teams up with Candy Crush for the Sweet Treats promotion, with froyo flavors and toppings inspired by Candy Crush
  • August 15: Forever Yogurt/Bee & Tea opens first location in California (Morgan Hill)
  • September 1: Orange Leaf partners with No Kid Hungry for the third time, they hope to provide 1 million meals to hungry kids in America (they exceeded their goal)
  • September 1: Menchie’s PAN the movie features PAN inspired flavors, Menchie’s PAN spoon, four collectible PAN froyo cup designs
  • September 1: Flavormine and IFYA launch the Switch It Up with Flavormine contest
  • August 27: 16 Handles Skinnygirl Sparklers team up for a new limited edition sorbet, Strawberry Lemonade
  • September 14: Yogurtland’s Instagram Top This Challenge features four different photo challenges and two new flavors, Vanilla Malt and Chocolate Truffle. Four winners won free Yogurtland for a year.
  • October 1: Menchie’s Month of Smiles kicks off with a contest to win free froyo, classic flavors and new Magic Spoons
  • October 28: First 16 Handles opens in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia), the development deal calls for 150 locations in 10 years
  • November 1: Menchie’s kicks off the Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Road Chip and the Holiday Dessert Fair promotion, it includes 6 dessert inspired frozen yogurt flavors, an Alvin spoon, Alvin & the Chipmunks cups and a road trip contest
  • November 25: Pinkberry New England partners with Flour Bakery’s Joanne Chang of Boston, MA to launch a new flavor inspired by her world famous sticky buns, a portion of the proceeds will go to Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign
  • December 10: Orange Leaf’s partner to open its first locations in the Middle East by the end of the year
  • December 14: Kahala Brands announces the acquisition of Pinkberry

For more froyo round-ups, check out our earlier posts on froyo flavor trends of 2015, new froyo trucks of 2015 and the 2015 froyo chain store location count. Happy holidays and we’ll be back with more froyo news next year!