Comments on: Breyers Natural Ice Cream and Tara Gum: Unilever’s Response

By: Barry Chern

Barry Chern — Sat, 10 May 2008 07:14:22 +0000

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.

By: Keith

Keith — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:05:16 +0000

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.

By: GCB

GCB — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:51:56 +0000

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.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:35:28 +0000

Boycott ALL Unilever products. Their dismissive responses are shameful. It may not help, but I know I’ll at least feel a little better.

By: Paul Joseph

Paul Joseph — Sun, 04 May 2008 05:28:54 +0000

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.

By: DNA

DNA — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:13:31 +0000

I hate the vanilla now. It has the texture of hand lotion. BLECH.

By: DNA

DNA — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:09:58 +0000

I hate the vanilla now. It has the texture of hand lotion. BLECH.

By: hebegeebee

hebegeebee — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:16:02 +0000

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.

By: Megan

Megan — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:56:22 +0000

“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.

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:44:28 +0000

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

By: dorms

dorms — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:35:00 +0000

dorms…

classic scorched earth…

By: JT

JT — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 11:59:11 +0000

Time to return to Frusen Glaje (sp?) !!

By: Doug

Doug — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:52:08 +0000

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?

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:10:00 +0000

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.

By: EvaMarie E.

EvaMarie E. — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:36:29 +0000

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!