Mark your calendar: National Frozen Yogurt Month begins June 1. To celebrate, 16 Handles, the New York self-serve frozen yogurt company, is serving up the results of its first annual Frozen Yogurt survey.
Based on the findings, it appears that throngs of national frozen yogurt fanatics will be celebrating in June—and beyond—as frozen yogurt continues to gain in popularity.
Here's the skinny on how hot this cool dessert/snack really is.
In an informal 2012 survey commissioned by 16 Handles:
- Nearly 79 percent of snackers shared that they prefer frozen yogurt to ice cream
- More than 45 percent eat frozen yogurt at least one once a month
- Nearly 95 percent consider frozen yogurt to be a better-for-you dessert and snack alternative to ice cream; more than half also cited frozen yogurt as their top choice for dessert over candy, cake and cookies
- More than two out of three people will pay up to $6 for a serving of premium frozen yogurt
- Almost 44 percent of those polled said they would rather give up ice cream for one month than go without fro-yo for the same time period; similarly, more than 23 percent would rather give up TV for one week.
“Since our beginning, 16 Handles has been uniquely obsessed with frozen yogurt as a better-for-you and delicious alternative to other frozen snacks and desserts,” says Solomon Choi, 16 Handles’ founder. “June is a great time to pay tribute to an industry and beloved product that is helping to put smiles on faces from the young to the young at heart.”
Industry advocates are quick to trumpet that frozen yogurt is also a boon to the domestic dairy industry. According to the Innovation Center for US Dairy, snacking foods are a $90 billion/year market domestically, and 51 percent of snacking occasions have some emphasis on health and nutrition.
Other recent stats show that:
- The U.S. produced 30.3 million gallons of frozen yogurt mix in 2011 (Source: United States Department of Agriculture)
- While production in low-fat and regular fat ice cream declined from 2009 to 2010 by 0.9 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively, frozen yogurt production increased by 8.1 percent during the same period (Source: Agricultural Marketing Resource Center)
