Just recently, as I was doing my usual grocery run. I went to the frozen dairy section to pick up a favoured ice cream.........
I have been an inveterate label reader for decades and have been in turn amused, insulted and horrified by some of the terminology utilized on our food product labels. Consequently, I am fairly well informed about what some of the terminology used on labels could mean.
I have followed the ice cream wars for many years, from the time our farmers tried to stop the importation of butter oil....to the introduction of new components in dairy labels known as milk components , milk solids or milk ingredients and modified milk ingredients.
As an ice cream purist ... what is put in my ice cream is of vast interest to me!!! Especially when you can put a relatively few simple products in a home ice cream maker and come up with SUCH a tasty product.
So back to the grocery store AND the ice cream department...... the ice cream in question
( Breyers All Natural Vanilla) lists as its first 5 ingredients :
milk ingredients, sugar, modified milk ingredients, glucose, natural vanilla flavour & 6 other ingredients, which includes mono- and diglycerides & polysorbate 80!!!
The last listed ingredient is natural vanilla bean. I guess that is why they can call it "ALL NATURAL", a misleading label, if I ever saw one.
No where on this label does it state milk or cream as an ingredient. For this, I paid $6.59 for 2 litres at Sobeys on sale, reduced from over $7.00 ! Since they are paying bargain basement prices for the 'milk ingredients' and the 'modified milk ingredients' (what does THAT mean to consumers?) I am more than annoyed by the price!
Milk Protein Concentrate (MPC) is a component of milk. It is purchased from processors who receive whole milk and may have skim milk powder left over. A further refinement leaves you with MPC. This stuff is made in Canada OR it can be imported! Shouldn't companies be required to tell us where it came from? Consumers can only assume that 'modified milk ingredients' means this component.
Nobody is telling us what it is!
The other problem I have is that all substitutes to real cream are cheaper than cream to use in ice cream mixes. This shouldn't be an issue, however, unfortunately it is. With cheaper components most consumers assume that the company will pass these savings on to their customers. Not so!! Time after time products in the grocery stores are priced to the beat of a different drummer and this one is no different!
The processor and the retailer have no interest in providing a cheaper product for me to purchase. They are only interested in THEIR bottom line!
No wonder dairy farmers are disgusted with these high jinks. Me-thinks processors protest too much. Especially when these companies have all seen continued profits and growth.
This issue continues to show up out there in the public and in the minds of various politicians AND economists.
The same old saw that taking away farmers market power will give consumers better (read lower) prices in the stores. This is the lie that gets continued support by many. What nonsense!.
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