An investigation has found that some vanilla ice creams sold on shelves have no fresh cream, milk or vanilla, with half of ice creams investigated failing to have all three on their ingredients list.
Traditionally, vanilla ice cream is made from a few simple ingredients: fresh milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla.
These ingredients are frozen and aerated to make ice-cream. But many shop-bought ice creams have long lists of ingredients and not what the public might expect.
Consumer organisation Which? has now investigated popular vanilla ice creams, including Häagen-Dazs, Carte D’Or, Ben & Jerry’s and Wall’s, along with supermarket brands.
Of the 24 that was examined, five contained no cream, no fresh milk and no vanilla.
Seven were missing at least one of these key ingredients. That left just 50% of those vanilla ice creams examined listing fresh milk, vanilla and cream on their label.
Fresh milk
The five ice creams that had no trace of fresh milk, cream or vanilla were Asda, Ms Molly’s, Morrisons, Tesco and Wall’s.
Of the 12 ice creams that did contain all three of the traditional ingredients, which included popular brands Green & Blacks and Ben & Jerry’s, the ice cream with the most authentic ingredients was Häagen-Dazs vanilla which contains fresh cream (39%), condensed skimmed milk, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla extract, but costs £9.13 per litre.
Seven of the ice creams looked at were missing at least one of the key ingredients. Carte D’Or, for example, contains vanilla, but no fresh cream or milk.
On the flip side, Asda Soft Scoop Cornish Vanilla Ice Cream doesn’t contain vanilla but fresh cream and fresh milk are on the ingredients list.
Dried skimmed milk
Cream and milk are often substituted with partially reconstituted dried skimmed milk and in some cases whey protein.
Whey is what’s left over from milk when making cheese. Traditionally, this was considered waste but now it’s used for protein drinks.
In ice cream it’s used as a filler and in ‘dairy ice cream’ counts towards the dairy protein. Vanilla is often replaced with a general ‘flavouring’.
Until 2015, a product labelled ‘ice cream’ in the UK had to contain at least 5% dairy fat and 2.5% milk protein.
However, since the introduction of the Food Information Regulations in 2015, these rules no longer apply.
Real, British dairy
There are now industry standards and a product labelled as ‘dairy ice cream’ must contain at least 5% fat, some protein from a dairy source and no vegetable fats.
But there are no requirements to meet before something can be called ‘ice cream’. This means that vegan products can now be called ice cream and that manufacturers can reformulate to reduce fat but still call their products ice cream.
The investigation follows the release of the NFU's interactive map showcasing where farmers across England and Wales are producing real, British dairy ice cream.
The map is designed to connect the public with their local dairy ice cream producers and help people discover top quality British dairy products as well as the stories behind each unique ice cream maker.
