Following input from consumer focus groups who applauded the decision, the ice cream giant will be the latest company to join the trend to source only from cows not treated with rBST.
Ice cream giant Breyers has announced it will stop using milk and cream from cows treated with artificial growth hormones, becoming the latest big brand to shift toward more natural ingredients, reported Today.com, the website of NBC’s “Today” show.
“In talking to parents—and moms especially—of all the trends, they want transparency in what they eat and what they buy,” Alessandra Bellini, Vice President of Brand Development for Unilever, Breyers’ parent company, told Today.com.
During consumer focus groups, moms “actually clapped” when the company presented the possibility of using only hormone-free dairy, Bellini added.
The ice cream brand works with multiple dairy farmers in the U.S. and spent the past year ensuring that it sourced only milk and cream from cows not treated with rBST, an artificial hormone that boosts milk production in cattle, Today.com reported.
Breyers is also switching to vanilla that comes from sustainably sourced, Rainforest Alliance Certified beans in Madagascar. Both changes will be in effect by late February.
Harry Balzer, who tracks food trends for the research firm NPD Group, told Today.com that Breyers’ move aligns with the recent push toward real, natural foods. There was a time when people wanted products labeled fat-free and low-sodium, Balzer said, and then demand shifted to foods high in fiber or probiotics or omega-3s.
But those trends have passed, Balzer said. “Now, people are looking for the natural stuff, the real stuff,” he noted. “How can I make this simpler, cleaner?
“More people are eating organically than are on a diet right now,” Balzer added.
The natural route is more expensive, but customers won’t see a difference in the price of Breyers ice cream, Bellini said. Money, however, will likely a big factor for other companies considering a similar change, Today.com said.
“But they’ll watch the sales of that product,” Balzer said. “And if they see it goes well, they’ll go there, too.”
Breyers is not the first dairy manufacturer to ditch hormones, Today.com reported; companies have been cutting rBST out of production for years. Ben & Jerry’s, also a Unilever brand, has been against growth hormones since 1989. Several yogurt brands, including Chobani and Dannon, are also hormone-free, and anything in the organic aisle of the grocery store was produced without rBST.
Unilever, which also makes Klondike, Good Humor and Magnum, aims for all of its brands to use only hormone-free dairy by the end of 2015, Today.com reported.
While controversial, rBST has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 1993, Today.com noted.
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