Frozen Yogurt Making a Comeback

Back in the 80s and early 90s frozen yogurt was king of the frozen dessert world, then it fell out of favor with consumers.

Now it's back in a big way with at least three frozen yogurt shops opening in West Ashley alone in the past 18 months. More have popped up all over the Charleston area as well.

West Ashley's first frozen yogurt shop in recent years is in the St. Andrews Shopping Center, which opened in October 2010. The company that owns the local Yobe franchise followed up by opening three more stores in the Charleston Metro area within the past two years, according to Cecilia Pomareda, the manager of the West Ashley store.

There are about a half-dozen other frozen yogurt franchise chains operating in the Charleston area and the area's only independent frozen yogurt shop, Fro Yo in Paradise, which is located on Sam Rittenburg Boulevard in West Ashley.

Pomareda said about 60 percent of her customers are children and teens. Some of that has to do with her staff, she said. The West Ashley and James Island high schoolers that work part-time in the shop bring in a lot of their friends.

Pomareda also said that she doesn't get much business from the over 60 crowd.

"For a lot of the people over 60, ice cream is ice cream and yogurt is yogurt," she said.

But adults, who lived through frozen yogurt's first rise as a the dessert treat of choice love to bring their kids in now, she added.

"The grow-ups make more mess at the toppings counter than the kids," she said.

Pomareda said Yobe carries more than 100 flavors of frozen yogurt, though only a few are available at any one time. The classics like chocolate and vanilla are always on tap, and other flavors get changed out on a weekly basis. The store also has dozens of add-ins including its most popular item "popping bulbs," round gelatin orbs full of fruit juice.

At , Manager Katie Polk said business has been steady since the store opened in late summer 2011.

"We missed the summer rush, but we have a lot of loyal customers," Polk said.

Polk's in-laws decided to open the business after trying frozen yogurt on a vacation in Virginia. They looked into franchise opportunities but ultimately decided to open their own business because they didn't want to have to answer to anyone at corporate.

"There's more freedom, we can choose our own flavors, there's no corporate to listen to," Polk said.

Fro Yo has 16 flavors of frozen yogurt and about 80 toppings to choose from every day, and it has dozens of other frozen yogurt flavors that get featured in a flavor rotation. The store is also the first in the area to offer Girl Scout cookies as add-ins.

"We put up a blurb on Facebook saying the first few Girl Scouts who come by we'll buy 10 boxes from," Polk said. "We try to support the local community, we've done some donations for charity auctions too."

Though the West Ashley frozen yogurt market is getting more crowded, Polk said she isn't worried. Her store has about half of the West Ashley area to itself, she said.

On Sam Rittenburg Boulevard, Polk said, Fro Yo is closer for a lot of people than Yobe over on Savannah Highway. But Yobe recently got more competition much closer to home when a TCBY (The Country's Best Yogurt) opened two weeks ago in South Windemere in a spot formerly occupied by a Cold Stone Creamery.

Market forces 

"If you look at frozen desserts there is a definite pattern of indulgence, it's almost a wave," Honey Hill Farms Partner Bud Gunter said. "You go from the indulgent, high fat desserts then a shift comes and the low fat/non-fat products come back up."

Honey Hill Farm is one of the major suppliers of frozen yogurt mix for the industry. Gunter lived through the first wave of frozen yogurt stardom, and he said he's glad to see the second wave now.

Health conscious consumers helped launch the first frozen yogurt craze in California where traditional, tart tasting yogurt got the freezer treatment. When companies began adding active bacteria cultures and healthy add-ins like granola and fresh fruit to the mix. Other companies like TCBY (This Can't Be Yogurt) took the idea national and made it sweeter to compete better with traditional ice cream.

Michael Neuwirth, a public relations spokesman at Dannon which owns YoCream, another major supplier of frozen yogurt, said a stronger consumer interest in the overall yogurt market is helping to drive sales of frozen yogurt.

"As there are more types of yogurt to enjoy, people are eating more of it," Neuwirth said, pointing to the increasing popularity of Greek style yogurt at the supermarket.

He added that the slowly recovering economy is also a factor in the number of new frozen yogurt shops opening across the country. As people with the entrepruenurial spirit dealt with job losses, many wanted to open their own businesses rather than continue to punch the clock for someone else, and that led many to explore the opportunities in the frozen yogurt market.

Neuwirth said Dannon bought YoCream because it worked in the one area of the yogurt business Dannon had no expertise in, supplying retail frozen yogurt shops. He said Dannon's market research shows about 85 percent of American households eat yogurt at least once over the course of the year, however most of them are not regular consumers of yogurt products. Adding frozen yogurt to its product line was a way for the company to expand its reach.

"We are always looking for ways to bring health through food to more people," Neuwirth said.

However he said he would not necessarily characterize frozen yogurt as a health food.

"It is a dessert treat to be enjoyed as a part of a balanced diet," he said.

"The market has four sections," Gunter said. "You have the traditionalists that like the tart traditional yogurt flavors, then you've got the nostalgics that remember the 80s and 90s and still like frozen yogurt, then you've got the energy boost group made up mostly of younger kids who either weren't around the first time or were really young then, and then you've got the regular indulgent consumer that likes indulgent treats."

If the 80s and 90s were a boom, the market this time is more like an atomic blast.

"This time we have the indulgent consumer coming in in droves," Gunter said. "With this new craze we see most of stores going self-serve and that gives a lot more flavors than the first boom."

"The volume in this boom is a lot higher per store than last time."

"What makes it really attractive this time is when you go into the yogurt shop the consumer has all the control," Gunter said. "They can make whatever they want."

He adds that the health and wellness aspect of frozen yogurt also can't be over looked, especially when the nation's obesity epidemic has become such a large part of the national discussion.

Frozen yogurt typically has less fat than traditional ice cream and though there is plenty of candy, chocolate syrup, fudge and other fatty and sugary options to add into a cup of frozen yogurt, the shops that serve it also offer healthier alternatives including fresh fruit and nuts.

Gunter said after the first frozen yogurt craze fizzled he expected it to come back, he just wasn't sure when that would happen or how big it would be.

"I think frozen yogurt has a while to go yet this time," Gunter added.

But even when the craze eventually fades, and he expects it will eventually, he sees a bright future for the frozen yogurt shops.

"They have so many machines now, I can easily see them converting some of them to serve soft serve ice cream, frozen custards and other indulgent treats in the future," he said.