Remember cute Breyers commercials where the little boy reads the back of a non-Breyers ice cream container and can’t pronounce the artificial ingredients? Then he picks up a container of Breyers and can pronounce all of the ingredients because there are only four well-known natural ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, natural flavors. Well, now there is a fifth: tara gum. No, it’s not as scary to pronounce as cargenceen and gaur gum; but it’s not the simple ice cream that was formerly advertised. Tara gum is a new ingredient that Breyers has added to their ice creams to make them creamier.
Admittedly, when I first reviewed Breyers Natural Vanilla ice cream it didn’t even occur to me to look at the ingredients. A commenter informed me that the Breyers Natural Vanilla recipe was no longer as simple– tara gum had been added. Sure enough, I looked at the ingredients on the package and there it was. Since then, I have spent some time investigating this new addition to Breyers ice cream and will discuss my findings in a 4 part series. Today, in the first story of the series, I will outline the basics about tara gum and detail Breyers response to some questions I asked them. In the upcoming weeks I will post a taste test comparing Breyers All Natural Vanilla with and without tara gum, specify odd ingredients in other brands’ ice creams, and conclude with a story about the future of ice cream ingredients.
Tara gum is a natural ingredient from the tara tree, a plant commonly found in South America and Africa. Studies have shown it to be safe for human consumption. New Zealand and Australia Food Standards approved it as did the World Health Organization. However, the results of these studies were not entirely positive, as tara gum is indigestible and causes various problems when consumed in high quantities (>5%) by rats and dogs. Though, most humans will not consume this amount of tara gum and should not have anything to worry about.
Due to my curiosity about tara gum I contacted Unilever (the parent company of Breyers) with a number of questions about the product. These questions included:
When tara gum was first added to Breyers ice cream?
Is tara gum (or a similar substance) added to all of the Breyers ice creams or only
certain flavors? Also, is it added to other Unilever brands, such as Ben and Jerry’s?
Is there any plan to add tara gum to other brands of ice creams in the future?
Does the addition have anything to do with the Double Churned ice cream that is now being
sold?
Why was it decided that tara gum should be added to the ice cream?
Have you received complaints about the new additive?
A PR representative from GolinHarris got back to me with the following response:
In response to your questions regarding the use of tara gum in its ice cream, Breyers is proud of its all-natural heritage. It’s a position we take very seriously and one we work hard to maintain. We value the confidence our customers have in our products and go to great lengths to ensure exceptional quality and great taste.
So when consumers expressed concern over the texture of our products, we responded. By adding a natural gum to Breyers All Natural Vanilla ice cream, we’ve helped to protect the product’s texture while staying true to our all-natural commitment. We use tara gum from natural plant sources to help Breyers ice cream stay creamier and more enjoyable for longer periods of time.
Because ice cream is temperature-sensitive, this addition has further allowed us to ensure the ice cream’s quality throughout it distribution. As you can imagine, ice cream’s taste and texture can be unfavorably affected if exposed to temperature fluctuations during shipping or storage. Our customers describe the problem as ice cream with a “gritty” or “grainy” texture. In fact, growing distribution and increased handling of our ice cream in the marketplace has indeed resulted in greater chances for temperature abuse and heightened potential for texture problems.
Clearly, Unilever’s/Breyers response didn’t address the majority of my questions, which made me think that they’re not completely convinced that tara gum fits into the category of traditionally “natural products.” So my curiosity about this mysterious ingredient intensified and I decided more research was necessary. Stay tuned for my findings as I explore and analyze the ingredients of non-Breyers ice creams. Is this tara gum phenomenon is unique to Breyers or is it an industry-wide trend?
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check this out, they’ve decided to ruin ice cream in Russia too lol
http://www.unilever.com/ourcompany/newsandmedia/pressreleases/2008/unilever-acquires-leading-russain-ice-cream-company-inmarko.asp
Aside from taste there is another aspect of Bryers that I find disturbing. Over the last few years the price of the ice cream had increased while the quantity ha been reduced from 1/2 gallon to 1.75 quarts.
Just this week I noticed that the quantity for some select flavors has yet again been reduced to 1.5 quarts.
I have always enjoyed homemade ice cream more than store-bought. In my opinion Breyers has just tipped the scale making it worthwhile to always make it myself.
I’ve been wondering why Bryer’s wasn’t tasting right over the last year or so. I am (I guess I should say, “was”) a “Bryer’s ONLY” gal for years and years and years . . . My consumption of it went down as the price jumped from $2.50 for a half-gallon to $5.85 for 1.75 quarts, but I still searched for it on sale.
My husband and I were eating some the other night and even he was complaining about the difference in the taste. I agree with many of the earlier posts . . . it’s slimy! I spent the extra to buy Bryer’s because it was the only brand that didn’t taste that way! Edy’s is all the rage, but I can’t stand the consistency of that either. Never have liked it for that very reason. It reminds me of eating frozen butter (never done it actually, but can just imagine the consistency)!
How do we get them to bring back the “REAL THING?” Why is it that corporat big-whigs think that if everyone else is doing it one way, then we need to too. Never mind the fact that the reason everyone is loyal to your original product is that it is just that . . . DIFFERENT/BETTER!
I too contacted Bryers with essentially the same questions as those in the original post shown above. I received the same answer indicating that it was the “customers” who were requesting the change. BULL!!! I had enjoyed Bryers as my ice cream of choice for many years. Now it tastes just like all the other junk on the market. I’m still looking for a substitute that has the flavor and consistency of the old Bryers. Does anyone have a recommendation? If you know of anything close to those characteristics, PLEASE give us the brand name.
All I can say is, Bryer’s is now just like all of the rest..in fact, worse than many of the rest. Amazing that they would take simply the best ice cream and add an ingredient to it that totally ruined the taste. i wonder if their sales have gone up? My guess is that the Tara gum filler may let their product last longer on the shelf but man, the taste just ain’t what it used to be. Consumer Reports rated Bryer’s vanilla the best tasting vanilla of all the major brands a number of years back; I wonder what the ratings will be the next time?
Time to return to Frusen Glaje (sp?) !!
The overriding reason that commercial ice cream makers put gums, (“stabilizers” as they like to call them) into their products is to increase their volume. I.e., they are able to whip air into the product to increase its volume, and the gums help them to do this by entrapping the air into a gooey fluff (as some folks have already labeled them).
You can do a test yourself to see how deceptive this practice actually is. Buy yourself a quart container of Haagen Dazs plain vanilla ice cream and also a 1.75 quart container of Breyers plain vanilla. Regardless whether you may be a purist for Breyers or not, Haagen Dazs contains only real food ingredients, with no additives. This means that there is no air whipped into the product. Now weigh this quart of Haagen Dazs. The weight of this quart will be very nearly the same as the 1.75 quart container of Breyers plain vanilla. It appears that you are getting 75% more product with Breyers (or other brands), assuming you are paying the same price. The Haagen Dazs was probably the more expensive of the two purchases-and it should be!
If ice cream were sold by weight and not by volume, we would be able to tell what we are actually getting for our money.
Here is a reference site that will give you more than you will ever want to know about plant colloids (gums): http://www.cybercolloids.net/library/jecfa/index.php?submit=showspec&gum=additive-0439
“Remember cute Breyers commercials where the little boy reads the back of a non-Breyers ice cream container and can’t pronounce the artificial ingredients? Then he picks up a container of Breyers and can pronounce all of the ingredients because there are only four well-known natural ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, natural flavors. ”
They should do this commercial again where the kid starts out holding Breyers and then picks up Turkey Hill’s All Natural Recipe Ice Cream.
Turkey Hill All Natural Recipe Ice Cream is my NEW favorite. Screw Breyers!!!! Over Christmas we noticed the HUGE difference in Breyers when we made white russians and the ice cream didn’t melt! I mean the ice cream was in alcohol and it still didn’t melt???? I won’t eat ice cream that doesn’t melt.
The tara gum is only part of the problem – or maybe part of the cause of the other HUGE difference with Unilever-made Breyers – AIR! The creamy, melt-in-your mouth texture is gone – in fact, it doesn’t melt in the carton like it used to. Good Humor makes crap ice cream and has made Breyers into crap, no better than Dreyers or even grocery store ice cream. The Breyer family should sue Unilever for breech of contract!! We too are going to be making our own ice cream.
I hate the vanilla now. It has the texture of hand lotion. BLECH.
I hate the vanilla now. It has the texture of hand lotion. BLECH.
Breyer’s has been my favorite for 30 years!! Now with its gummy stabilizers it’s just like the other cheap brands. Bring back the old Breyer’s and I’ll be a customer again.
Boycott ALL Unilever products. Their dismissive responses are shameful. It may not help, but I know I’ll at least feel a little better.
Look at all these responses, almost 18 months after the original post. If that doesn’t tell you that people are *still* pissed about the changes to the Breyer’s formula, and are still seeking out information on just what the hell went wrong to an old favorite of thiers, then nothing will.
I hadn’t bought ice cream for a while, but I wanted to make my wife happy and picked up a package of our all-time-favorite mint chocolate chip. Just putting the scoop into the contents was enough to make me say, “what the…”, and check the ingredients.
It sucks. In fact, it is the “giantest vacuum of suck ever”, to quote one of my favorite writers on the Burgh Blog.
I don’t eat ice cream very often, and living in North Carolina, I prefer Goodberry’s Frozen Yogurt. Tonight, when I purchased my first “half gallon” of Breyers Mint Chocolate I immediately noticed the small size – 1.5 quarts and the same price I remember. I felt the package and it was squishy. I thought maybe it had gotten warm. But this can’t be a coincidence? The last few times I purchased Breyer’s it was in the small containers and I found the same thing. Well, after an hour or so in the freezer, the ice cream had the same consistency. Then the taste – terrible! This is when I knew that it was not a coincidence. The addidive, Tara Gum, makes the ice cream more “creamy” or “fluffy”, as Breyer’s says. Do you know what “fluffy” means? Try “airy”, as in, the container Breyer’s ice cream comes in contains more air which means, less ice cream!!!
I remember as a kid, my mother only bought Breyers. We’d put our bowls in the microwave for a few seconds to make it soft. It would be nice and creamy – I loved it. Now, when it is warmed up you get a frothy, disgusting, airy mess. From now on I will avoid Breyers. It will never touch my lips again.
Maybe they had a lot of old stock in the freezers of my local grocery chains. I just ran into my first obviously ruined package of Breyer’s Neopolitin. It dropped down to 1.5 quarts in size, and added some noticeable percentage of gum. The overall change in value is out of all proportion, though. It’s a total loss of one of the better things in life.
I guess it was just denial that everything was okay after the corporate takeover. I think they were just waiting for most of us old fans to die off.
I so agree with you all…. I’m Canadian too, and we lost all Breyers real ice cream awhile ago. I recently found a 1 litre container of “All Naturals” in vanilla, chocolate & strawberry flavors, but alas it was very short lived – they’ve already discontinued it. I emailed Breyers Canada and got a canned reply “its discontinued”. I emailed back asking what “all natural” with no additives ice cream do they have then, and the reply WITHOUT APOLOGY was “NONE”.
BOO!!!!
PS Watch out for the Haagan Daaz “lite” with half fat — its full of corn syrup. Yech. It seems a lot of the ice creams have corn syrup now. Double Yech.
Breyers Vanilla ice cream use to be my favorite. When I noticed a change in the flavor some time back (I guess it was 2 years ago), I told my wife not to buy it anymore because it didn’t taste as good. I thought they took out some of the vanilla. Well my wife bought some today. I tried it and thought this sucks, I looked at the ingredients – vanilla is not listed, and something called tara gum was. That led me to this site. Bottom line – Breyers now sucks and I won’t buy it anymore unless it is by mistake.
When I recently returned home from being stationed over seas the first thing I wanted was a back yard grill-out. And nothing reminded me of better times more than Breyers ice cream after a hamburger. But this stuff was hard, despite the heat, and foamy. We checked the expiration date first, then my mother saw the additional ingredients. It wouldn’t have been too bad but the taste was really awful, I agree with other posters, it tastes like the cheap store brand. How they can continue to label this as Breyers all natural is beyond me.
I guess this is one more classic American staple gone for good.
yes, its a mess.
glad i found this page.
It was the ONLY ice cream I ever ate.
I kept thinking I was getting a bad batch.
Until, I woke up and saw my bowl from the previous night. I had left about a scoop left in the bowl.
and guess, what.
it was still there!
it didnt really melt all that much, it just got rubbery.
such a shame.
No question about it, I notice a difference, for the worse, with tara gun. Not natural in my book. Bryer’s formerly digested very easily – now, it does not, and is fake tasting. Shame on Breyer’s for letting us down, and trying to blame us for the change. Another example of greedy corporations making money instead of making a product they can be proud of!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
breyers is just store brand quality. since it moved from its original location in philadelphia its been on the decline, now that unilever has taken over its not even worth buying anymore. turkey hill vanilla in the black carton is the closest thing you will get in taste to the original breyers
Ahhh… the little things I wish I knew BEFORE I went to the grocery store. Like the hundreds of others here, I too am disgusted by the change in the Breyer’s formula. There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said. It’s crap and I’m sad.
I just had my wisdom teeth out and nothing sounded better than a nice, cole bowl of my favorite Breyer’s Vanilla. But no, it’s changed, it’s awful, and it just made an already painful day worse. Thanks for nothing, Unilever.
I used to eat a couple of cartons of Breyers Natural Vanilla every week, with the Natural effects on my waistline. I dropped a lot of pounds when I kicked the habit. A few days ago I was in Costco and they were handing out samples of their own brand of vanilla ice cream. I took one bite and tossed the rest in the trash bin while complaining that it was too “gummy”. I started thinking how much better Breyer’s would be in comparison. It had been a couple of years since I’d eaten it (or any kind of ice cream).
Two days later I was in Safeway and saw Breyers All Natural Vanilla on sale (BOGO) and went home with two cartons. I took one bite and wondered what was wrong. There was that same nasty, gummy mouthfeel that made me hate the Costco brand. I looked at the ingredient list and was dismayed at first, but then a little releived that I was not about to become readdicted to the stuff.
In the past, I would get the occasional carton of Breyers that had turned all gritty. Once or twice it was so bad I took it back to the store. I am SO SORRY! I thought they (whoever’s fault it was) would be encouraged to be more careful with the handling. I never could have imagined that Breyers would use that as an excuse to ruin a great ice cream.
My wife bought me a treat today. It was my 2nd favorite flavor(Butter Pecan) When I first opened the container, I noticed the contents were shrunk away from the rim of the box leaving a wide troth encircling the product.
Settling? I thought. The product tasted foriegn to me after the first taste, and I couldn’t believe Breyers would adulterate their fine product..Having had similar bad taste experiences with Keeblers Vienna Fingers and Oreo cookies (PALM OIL), I checked Breyer’s content label. No palm oil BUT, Tara gum and Canolla oil jumped right out at me. With the excessive price we pay for food these days,you’d think twice before buying an inferior product. I have lost faith in Breyer’s integrity (Or what ever is left of it?)
Unbelievable! I just had a bowl of Breyers All Natural Vanilla with real vanilla bean specks and was incredibly disappointed. I noticed a lot of verbage on all sides of the packaging emphasizing natural, natural, natural, which made me suspicious, as the Breyers brand always meant four simple ingredients to me Milk, Cream, Sugar, vanilla beans. When I located the ingredient list I was horrified to find Tara Gum, what the he&! is tara gum? so I googled it only to find this blog and realize that even a classic brand that had been built on a rock solid foundation of quality and simplicity could be sold out…..tragic!
We too almost purchased a half gallon of Natural Vanilla after leaving out a dish of Dreyers overnight and looking at the lump in the morning — it hadn’t melted or changed shape overnight. We re-read the ingredients in the Breyers before putting it in the cart — and there was this Gum ingredient. Yikes!! We didn’t put it in the cart — instead we got on the web to see what had happened. What a shame. No more Breyers for us!!
Dear All,
Unilever doesn’t care about it’s customers, enough over profits. If you bother to write to them, they will send out a corporate form letter with the BS about Tara gum being used to prevent ICE from forming in the carton and will send you a coupon for free breyer’s product…
I’ve since switched over to Turkey Hill’s BLACK LABELED Philadelphia, ALL Natural style ice cream. NOTE: the other labels in Turkey Hill’s ice cream products also contain GUM, just be sure to watch out for the Philadelphia style BLACK LABEL…!
I’ve written to Turkey Hill also praising them for their ALL natural recipe and they replied with a very sincere THANK YOU and a decent amount of coupons including free ice cream…
Do yourselves a favor, BUY/TRY the Black Labeled Turkey Hill and IF you enjoy it like I do, then WRITE, you MUST write to them and tell them NOT to change the recipe…
Otherwise, we’ll have another loss…
Just my two cents!!!
I already knew the end was near when the container was smaller. I made a root beer float and couldn’t really tell the difference, but noticed SOMETHING. Just a few minutes ago I took a spoonful and noticed it was not flaky and delightful like it used to be. I looked at the box then googled the new natural tara gum. I will be purchasing wal-mart brand from now on since all the ice cream is crap now!
I got the same BS PR release. Right…
According to Dr. Steven Young a food science consultant who specilaizes in dairy:
“An important factor in the use of whey products in ice cream and other frozen dairy desserts is the ability to manage or reduce mix ingredients cost. When formulation is done correctly, all whey ingredients can offer cost savings opportunities.”
Other reliable sources cite whey as “filler” and “inferior”. I thought someone had mixed the Turkey Hill or Edy’s into the Breyers package. I’ll never buy again.
I just discovered this site.
Are you all crazy?????
BREYER’S IS THE BEST …… ooops WAS the best.
After a year’s hiatus, I bought the little 1.75 of chocolate mint & ended up writing Breyers a note (free online) saying that it was SO full of AIR that it was inedible.
Remember when you had to run a scoop under water to get it to cut through the proper density? … not anymore! It’s now like cutting through whipped cream!
So I had a reply that it must have been a packaging problem & my concerns would be forwarded to the quality department (lotta good that would do). Two weeks later the mailman brought a letter from Unilever which I almost threw out since I thought “don’t they make SOAP?” Well, opened it anyway to find coupons for 2 FREE Breyers or Good Humor products. Soooooo I take them to the store —- surprise,,, 2 for 1 sale & I now have FOUR for the price of one (around here, a $22 “value”).
I taste tested each flavor to discover the SAME airy texture.
No more frozen FLAVORED AIR for me.
Yes, Breyers isn’t Breyers anymore!!!!!!
At least I get the last tasteless snicker!
I just discovered a reasonable test for the stores…. Squeeze the carton on the sides … Does it give like a balloon? All Breyers will not pass. Air test done!
Funny how people (like me) are still just now discovering that Unilever started trying to squeeze more profit out of their Breyer’s brand by reducing both the product’s size and quality. They bought the brand in 1993, but were somehow able to leave it alone for well over a decade before some schmuck division manager’s quarterly numbers needed a boost and the temptation to tamper became too great. So the stabilizers started showing up two years ago from what I’ve read, but I wasn’t buying much ice cream so I didn’t notice. It was only when I bought a tub of the new, miserly 1.5 quart Breyers cherry the other day that I realized–horrors!–Breyer’s was no longer premium ice cream. Well, I await the “new half-gallon size!” and “Breyer’s classic recipe!”, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ll give Turkey Hill’s “All Natural Recipe” line a try, but that will mean driving two miles out of my way instead of the three blocks to my usual grocery store. At least my arteries will be happy that Breyer’s is no longer any good.
People, its not the end of the world, we still have hagen daaz! I hope they never sell out. I’m here because I just bought a container of Breyers vanilla (for $6.85!) because the store was out of hagan daaz. I knew it was crap but had no idea how bad it had gotten. They really have some nerve charging such a premium for for this…stuff. It used to be so good. How long can they really keep this up before people catch on? Unilever should stick to soap.
You guys are making such a big deal!!! Tara Gum is a 100% natural product, it is produced in Peru and the use of this 100% natural product, organic compliance help a lot of poor farmer comunities in Peru, it comes from the seed of tara pods and it is produced mechanically so it is 100% natural!!! I can not believe all the comments posted, before to make a comment you guys FIRST SHOULD READ WHAT TARA GUM IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I totally agreed, TARA GUM is totally natural, Non-GMO and it is wild crafted!!!! TARA GUM really fits the Organic, Natural, Non-GMO, fair trade trend!!!!!!!!!!
OK all,,,
Let me fuse these comments with the concept that the Tara IS a natural product (like xanthan gum, guar gum, and gum arabic). Let’s assume it’s just used as an acceptable thickening polymer by the FDA. WHY?
I suspect it would also allow the product to accept more injected air than without the additive.
More $$$; less filling; free air!
Ahhh, feel the power of greed!!!
Thanks for the Turkey Hill tip. I’ll be switching to Turkey Hill Black Label. Regardless of whether Tara gum is natural or not, the new Breyers stinks.
Corporate shills?
The point is…,WE DON’T LIKE Tara gum. You and your boyfriend can eat all the tara gum you want, free trade or otherwise. Tara gum is the endo-sperm of the tara tree. When put in Breyer’s ice cream it is not the stuff we used to like. It is just another crap ice cream. Some of us are more discriminating than most.
Arsenic, MSG, dog crap and sawdust are “natural”, too. I’m not going to buy frozen dairy product with any of those in it either.
My wife and I were disappointed last night when we saw the newly added ingredient, tara gum. We don’t believe this was done per consumer request. Corporations are money driven, period. (Unilever, remember Classic Coke and New Coke and what happened there???)
In the future we will probably see yet another diminished container size – for the same price.
We’re with the others who are converting to our own home-made ice cream.
I have recently begun to pay more attention to all processed food ingrediants. It is my goal to avoid chemical additives by eating mostly fresh meats, fruits and vegetables. However, I still have a soft spot for ice cream. My son and I were talking yesterday about which ice creams were all natural. I said Haagen-Dazs and Breyer All Natural. Well, today I found out the field has been narrowed down to one – Haagen-Dazs! My guess is Unilever simply wanted to lengthen the shelf life of their product. Bad move!
My mother always told me never to swallow gum. I think that was very good advise!
Very very disappointed in the latest ice cream, not the same any more and care not buy any of their products. Talk about being cheated out of Pecans now I see why.
Like pulling the proverbial thread on a suit, I noticed last night that the Breyers size has shrunk to 1.5 quarts. Yet it was in the store freezer where the larger size had been, only now at a higher price. I felt totally ripped off, and did a Google search and came upon this discussion…and made the sad discovery that the ingredients have been doctored as well.
The Emperor Has No Clothes…and it’s the naked truth. Boycott Breyers!
In June of this year my daughter was visiting
from Australia and she always liked Breyers
vanilla bean ice cream. She told me that it
did not taste like it had previously. We
looked at package and it used to say
Vanilla Bean it does not any longer
and there’s that added tara gum !!!
I emailed them but not really a good answer.
I have enjoyed Breyers for a long long time
I am 70 yrs old. I will not buy it again unless they remove the tara gum. it is not the same.
Breyers sucks!!! I have been eating Breyers since a kid. It was the only brand of Butter Pecan that we keep in our house. I had no idea that tara gum had been added, but I knew that Breyers started to taste AWFUL. I then bought the cookies and cream for my husband and he said it sucked…I tasted it and agreed. I apologized to him and said…this is not the Breyers I grew up on and started to search the internet to see what happened…tara gum to my surprise!!! I knew something had changed…but I will never have Breyers in my house again…it taste awful and that new creamy idea needs to be revamped!!!
Last evening my Hubby and I went out to the supermarket in Phoenix,AZ. When we went to choose our ice cream I noticed that the containers appeared smaller. I did some brand comparison and found that indeed the contents were now 1.5 instead of 1.75 which, since I am in my 50′s and remember, 2.0. In the last year or so I also noticed a change in taste and texture and not in a good way. My household consists of myself, Hubby, and two grown sons. One little 1.5 container will not even make a serving for each of us. So I decided to boycott and not purchase any of the ice cream brands. The only way to make a company sit up and take notice is to hit them in the pocket book.
I used to buy Bryers All Natural Light Ice Cream. It was very good. Bryers stopped selling the “Light” All Natural. Therefore, the All Natural Ice Cream contained too much fat. Now Bryers has added Tar Gum. I tried some of the other Bryers Ice Cream flavors and they were awful. I will never buy that junk again. Bryers evidently have lost their minds on quality and taste. Bryers has fallen down below the cat dung quality and taste.
I buy another brand of ice cream now.
I remember making my own ice cream with an electric ice cream maker, adding rock salt to the ice in the tub to melt it quick enough to freeze the cream mix. It was a bit of work, tho not as much work as the old hand crank ones (I’m old enough to remember those),but it was so worth the effort. Just cream, sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt. It was just too good to share with anyone else. And I would get ice cream all over my face trying to lick the beater. How could I ever go back to the cheap “ice cream” my parents always bought when I was a kid? That stuff could double as embalming fluid. They never bought the good stuff, so I hadn’t even tasted Breyer’s until after I had been making my own ice cream as an adult. I was amazed that it was EXACTLY the same as I had learned to make. Same great ingredients. Same great texture. Same great taste. I soon figured out that it was actually cheaper to buy Breyer’s than to make my own. So the ice cream maker found a new home in the garage next to the canning jars I’ve never used. However,I’ve recently noticed the difference in the taste and texture and one look at the change of ingredients confirms that Breyer’s has completely lost the one thing the name stood for—-QUALITY. Oh they can take pride in the fact that they still taste better than the great majority of their competition. But to me they just make a higher grade of embalming fluid. What fools! Don’t they realize that what they had was SO good they didn’t need to change the ingredients or the size of the container to continue making a profit. Just adjust the price to offset the increasing cost of doing business and then start a new ad campaign highlighting the difference between what their ice cream contains and what the competition contains. And Breyer’s would sell more ice cream because it would be more appealing to health-conscious people, despite being a dairy product full of sugar. So what if it costs significantly more than others, but doesn’t Ben & Jerry’s and Haagen Daas? But they took the negative attitude: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, and have lowered their standards to match the other morticians/ice cream manufacturers. And they are losing their customer base, never to return, because they will find another company who makes ice cream as good or better than Breyer’s once did, without tara gum, coconut oil or chocolate flavored chips. So, Breyer’s must ask itself: how much will their cost-cutting changes save them in the long run? The shrunken box of Breyer’s chocolate mint (flavored) chip ice cream in my freezer is the last one I’ll ever buy. Time to hunt down and dust off the old electric REAL ice cream maker, get a taste of the the good stuff once again and hope to God that Unilever never corners the market on real whipping cream and replaces it with coconut oil and tara gum.
Tara gum in my ice crea!!???
Breyer’s founder must be spinning in his grave!! Shame on you Breyer’s for ruining my favorite vanilla, chocolate, triple chocolate, and checker board chocolate!!
The only natural ingredients ice cream left and now it has given up its creamy soul to commercialist.. Ah, Breyer’s you look like you a re heading the wrong way. The way Brigham’s Ice Cream from New England went years ago.
Brigham’s, now that was real ice cream!! Breyer’s you came close…now, you blew it.
You better put back that all natural ice cream again or bye goes one more customer..
Vince
Tara gum is evil! I miss my Breyers Vanilla and Breyers Cookies and Cream. Curse Unilever!
As much as I like Consumer Reports, I’m mad at them for accusing Breyers texture as not being “creamy” enough. BS. But I bet it’s more about the bottom line. Damn.
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