The dubious nature of Indian ice cream

It’s either a tribute to the power of social media or an example of how limited social media’s reach really is.

Last week most newspapers carried the news that the Kwality Walls brands that we are all familiar with will stop being made with vegetable fat but will be made with milk instead.

 

This is a welcome step. Almost since I started writing this column I have complained about the synthetic nature of what we regard as ice cream in India. Nearly every ingredient is artificial or chemical. But the most galling thing about the so called ice cream is that it is not made with cream at all. It is not even made with very much milk. Basically it is congealed vegetable fat.

 

   This surprised most people but did nothing to shame the purveyors of frozen vegetable fat. The only concession anyone made to the criticism was that the manufacturers were made to stop calling their disgusting products ice cream. They were forced to use the term frozen dessert.

 

   Amul, which is actually in the milk business, sensed that there was a hole in the ice cream market and entered it. Amul used the obvious advantage it had and said it was making real ice cream not a product derived from vegetable oil. A famous ad described the Kwality Walls products as vanaspati which sounded good but was a tactical error. The health objection to vanaspati is that it can be a transfat and therefore bad for cardiac health. Unilever which owns Kwality Walls sued on the grounds that its product contained no trans fats (even though it had oil) and won the case.

 

   But how many people can a multinational sue? Over the last few years the internet and instagram in particular has been full of posts about the dubious nature of so much Indian ice cream. All of this (and, I would like to think, a sense of shame) may have led to the announcement that palm oil would no longer be used.

 

   So a victory for social media? Well, yes and no. The posts may have precipitated the shift to milk but when the announcement was made, I was startled by how many people were surprised to discover that they had been eating cold congealed vegetable oil these years. They had simply missed the entire controversy so, the media (and social media) may count for something but our influence counts for little compared to the power of decades of advertising.

 

   Why did they throw out vegetable oil and turn to milk? Hard to say but it probably has something to do with Unilever’s decision to spin off its ice cream division last year. So the so-called ice creams are now part of a new company called Magnum. And I imagine that Magnum does not want to be perceived by the market as being associated with a legacy of congealed palm oil.

 

"One view is that the Indian consumer can now actually tell the difference between milk and oil."

   The more interesting question is: why was Unilever flogging frozen vegetable oil to us anyway? The answer may have to do with British history. Britain began rationing milk during the Second World War and rationing continued into the 1950s. During this period British manufacturers of ice cream had no choice but to look for milk substitutes and vegetable fat started out as a replacement for milk out of necessity. But as time went on and milk became freely available the manufacturers saw no reason to go back to making the real thing because a) the British who had one of the worst cuisines in the world simply could not tell the difference between real ice cream and the vegetable oil rubbish. And b) milk can be more expensive than vegetable oil so this bogus ice cream could be sold cheaply and potentially had far greater profit potential.

 

   Ice cream was not an isolated example. Because Brits saw milk as a luxury product, margarine (basically, vanaspati with a British accent) became an acceptable mass alternative to butter.

 

   British companies brought this vegetable oil method to India and hoodwinked Indians into believing that this was what real ice cream tasted like.

 

   Apparently the UK is still a frozen vegetable oil market. To be called ice cream in Britain the product must contain 2.5 percent milk protein and 5 percent fat which can be sourced from any animal or vegetable. If this five per cent does come from milk then the product falls into a category called ‘dairy ice cream.’ If the milk fat exceeds 10 percent then the ice cream is considered ‘premium.’

 

   These standards are significantly lower than in many other Western countries. In the US you cannot sell any product with less than 10 percent milkfat and at least 20 percent milk solids as ice cream.

 

   As palates have got more sophisticated around the world (even in the UK) premium ice creams have become popular. In Britain ‘Cornish ice cream’ has always had a higher milk fat content and the emergence of such brands as Häagen-Dazs (established in the Bronx in New York in 1960 by a couple of enterprising Jews who chose a foreign sounding name and then sold the brand to a succession of multinationals) and Ben and Jerry’s (established in Vermont and sold to Unilever with whom the original founders have often fought; and now also spun off to Magnum) created a new category of quality ice cream.

 

   The Magnum spinoff may have been prompted by changing consumer preferences. Unilever may have won cases against Amul but it regularly lost market share and Amul ice cream is now much bigger than Unilever’s frozen desserts. One view is that the Indian consumer can now actually tell the difference between milk and oil. This view has historically been challenged by old style Indian market experts. I have been told by industry veterans that it is impossible to tell the difference (‘let me give you a blind test and prove it’ etc.).

 

   And at one stage Unilever executives were actually claiming that their product had health and taste advantages: “Palm oil or derivatives like mid fractions are healthier. Also, vegetable fat is amenable to making ice cream. Palm oil is very versatile, and helps give frozen dessert its smooth and creamy texture at -15 degrees, “one was quoted as telling the media.

 

   None of this nonsense has helped them retain market share and for years the only one of their products I would touch was the Magnum which was made with milk and real chocolate. (No, they did not make it here but imported it from Thailand.)

 

   Can it be a coincidence that the spinoff company is called Magnum? Possibly but the dismal fate and welcome death of the congealed vegetable oil market tells us the multinationals are finally taking the Indian palate seriously.