Why frozen yogurt?

What is frozen yogurt?

This is a question that many will ask themselves, or has been asked of me, upon mentioning that Arctic Farm is a “new frozen yogurt company”. Alternatively, many see frozen yogurt as a budget replacement to fresh a bit like frozen mince that might just look a bit like a milky ice cube which clearly is not the greatest or reps.

To those with some sort of familiarity with “froyo” it will probably be either the low/zero fat versions that are tagged along to existing ice cream ranges (created in reaction to the boom in dieting)that you are most familiar.

One question that I ask myself has to be why has frozen yogurt been done so badly? Other sectors, led by chilled juices, seemed to have realised that quality, provenance and authenticity are achievable – the sensible option in my view. Why use syrups, chemicals and potions to force through a non fat product, when you can keep things simple and jumble some fantastic, British fruit and yogurt together to produce something that is naturally a lot lower in fat than ice cream and remaining fresh, real and great tasting? Well, it seemed like the obvious thing for us to do, which is why we’ve worked hard to simplify the recipe and whole concept, we realised the glory has to be in the ingredients and where they have travelled from. Simplicity is certainly best in our opinion.

Admittedly when we started trying out ideas in our university kitchen, we thought it would be a little easier than it has turned out to be, to get the product right. Which is why others use those chemicals I suppose, while its important to keep it soft and low in fat (which is what the potions do) but I think we’ve found a way to do it with some names that you will know.

Yogurt is a great product in itself. It’s naturally creamy, tangy and has a fine taste. However, as an ambient product we have found it can be boring, unexciting and generally a little uninspiring. Although it tastes pretty good, it was never something we looked forward to eating, until we froze it. Ice cream, on the other hand has that excitement, spark or X-factor. For generations it has been much loved, but when we were looking for a product that was really 2009, easy to consume, local and healthy (we didn’t want to have to stop eating it…) we couldn’t find one.

By freezing our yogurt, not only do we extend the shelf life (naturally) but the chill factor adds that refreshing, indulgent feel. We want to make yogurt fun and hopefully by filling it with juicy, vibrant fruit, we’ve changed things a little.

Using British produce is something that has been something that has been extremely important to us from the start. It seems silly to be importing everything from all over the shop, when we’ve got some bloody brilliant stuff right here, on our doorstop in Britain. We’ve concentrated on using British fruit because we think it’s best to start simple, with what we know, before we use other fruits we don’t know about and potentially use them badly. We also wanted British to be at the fundamental backbone to who we are and what we represent, possibly even an opportunity to spread the word of the great produce from this country and possibly help out our pal, farmer Bill. This isn’t to say that we won’t look further afield in the future; we know that there is some fantastic produce and exciting varieties out there, but we’ll just wait until we are ready and take a look at how they mix with the flavours that we have at the moment.