Ice cream joins the diet war

It is the latest front in Britain's diet wars - and this time it's ice cream.

The move comes more than 20 years after the launch of Diet Coke and long after reduced-fat milk and cream became commonplace in supermarkets.

Britain's £1billion ice-cream industry is only now being forced to respond to shoppers' ever-increasing obsession with obesity and weight loss, according to experts.

One said: "Britain is at least five years behind America, where you already have dozens of low-fat ice-cream brands."

Number one manufacturer Unilever is putting the finishing touches to "light" versions of two of its biggest-selling brands: Magnum, a slab of chocolate-coated ice cream on a stick; and its tubbed ice-cream Carte d'Or.

They are due to to be launched in March, the unofficial start of the ice-cream season in Britain, amid a £23million advertising and marketing fanfare.
James Hill, chairman of Unilever Ice Cream and Frozen Food, said: "One of the great myths is that you can't sell a diet ice cream.

"We are going to debunk that. We think we will get a competitive advantage."
The new diet Magnum will have a third less fat than the standard version, bringing the fat content down from 17 per cent - one of the highest levels of any icecream - to 11.7 per cent.

Magnum had been previously marketed as the ultimate in guilty treats, with a hugely successful advertising campaign based on the seven deadly sins.

The new version of Carte D'Or will have its fat content halved from five per cent to less than 2.5 per cent, a level so low that it is no longer technically classified as ice cream. There were no immediate plans to do a diet version of other Unilever brands such as Cornetto.

However, it’s biggest rival in the UK, Richmond Foods, claimed to have stolen a march on its competitor with the launch of its “Skinny Cow” range of ice creams on a stick in Asda supermarkets earlier this month.

These come in three flavours with fat contents ranging from 0.2 per cent to 1 per cent.

Marketing director Kate Needham insisted the Skinny Cow range was far closer to being a true “diet” ice cream t6han Unilever’s reduced-fat innovations. “If you start out with a lot of fat and take out 33 per cent you have still got a lot of fat,” she said. Sales of the range were “outstripping all expectations,” she added.

The range is due to go into other stores from the autumn.

The trend could reap huge benefits for ice cream makers. Low fat ice creams are cheaper to make and both companies hope the new ranges will boost sales.

Market researchers point to the success of Diet Coke, sales of which overtook the original for the first time ever in Britain this year, making it the country’s biggest-selling soft-drink brand.