Fro-yo face-off

It’s been eight long months in the making, but everything is finally ready, and hours ahead of schedule.

The signs announcing a grand opening have been printed and hung, the fruit has been diced into bite-sized pieces and the frozen yogurt machines are patiently humming.

So why is Chong Lee ““ co-founder of Polar Monkey ““ so tense?

“Too much frozen yogurt shops around here. Berry this, berry that, too many berries!” Lee shouts.

In the time it took Lee and his partners to secure a lease and open a store, three new dessert vendors ““ all offering the same brand of tart frozen yogurt smothered in fresh fruit ““ popped up in Westwood Village, bringing the total to a whopping five stores.

Pinkberry, Snowberry, Berry Best, Red Mango, and now, Polar Monkey.

The stores present a Korean-American spin on an old dessert favorite ““ frozen yogurt tarter, icier and lighter than ever before.

The phenomenon’s rapid spread in Westwood is part of a viral expansion throughout Los Angeles and other major cities across the nation. Pinkberry ““ the industry leader ““ has grown to include more than 30 locations just two years after opening its first store in West Hollywood.

As the competition to win over fro-yo enthusiasts intensifies across the Southland, the Village and its stable of hungry college students has become a primary battleground.

“Compared to Pinkberry, we’re a small company,” said Jimmy Han, manager at the Snowberry in Westwood. “But we’re trying to go step by step ““ bigger, bigger, bigger.”

Dessert deja vu

For many market specialists ““ and amateur dessert enthusiasts old enough to remember ““ the recent craze is reminiscent of the frozen yogurt boom of the late ’80s.

Ice cream distributors then, facing an increasingly health conscious public, launched a low-fat dessert substitute ““ creamy frozen yogurt that came in ice cream flavors.

“It just seems like many foods are cyclical,” said Lynda Utterback, executive director of the National Ice Cream and Yogurt Retailers Association, an umbrella organization based out of Illinois.

That brand of yogurt ““ led by Penguins and other vendors that have since declined ““ used heavy flavoring to mask the product’s tart yogurt base.

The taste fusions were problematic, experts say, because ice cream flavors like chocolate and vanilla clashed with the natural tartness of yogurt.

The demand for frozen yogurt crashed as dessert distributors began to develop quality low-fat ice creams, an option virtually nonexistent before the early ’90s.

“People are very serious about their ice cream, and when they decide they want ice cream, they get ice cream,” Utterback said.

Many dairy dessert specialists are forecasting a brighter fate for the recent frozen yogurt boom ““ mainly because this time around, frozen yogurt vendors are opting to embrace the product’s natural flavors instead of masking them.

Frozen yogurt makers today “have become smarter,” said Dr. Phillip Tong, a professor who specializes in frozen dessert technology and dairy chemistry at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. “They’re using fruit flavors that balance the acid better. That’s been one of the keys to their success.”

A bitter rivalry

The frozen yogurt battlefield looks something like this: Dozens of lesser vendors caught between two goliaths ““ Pinkberry and Red Mango waging a wide-scale public relations tussle to be crowned “the original.”

Red Mango reps claim they started the tart yogurt trend in South Korea, where they dominate the market with hundreds of stores in and around Seoul.

“What we pride ourselves on is authenticity,” said Daniel Kim, president of Red Mango’s U.S. operations.

Pinkberry president Young Lee admits to co-opting the idea ““ just not from Red Mango ““ claiming he was inspired by an Italian brand of sour fro-yo he sampled during a trip to Vienna years ago.

His girlfriend, and Pinkberry co-founder, Shelly Hwang tinkered with that formula, perfecting a recipe that never took off in its home country.

“Don’t try to piggyback someone’s fame,” Young Lee said. “That’s an unfair practice and people should really look at themselves in the mirror and rethink their characteristics.”

But talk to seasoned American dessert distributors and they’ll tell you a different story.

Utterback says American distributors developed tart fro-yo in the ’70s.

But the American public, she says, never warmed up to the idea of sour dessert, so the line was discarded ““ only to resurge three decades later.

Designing success

“Wait, let me show you something,” says Young Lee, as he stands at the sink filling a pitcher to the brim.

No one’s quite sure what he’s up to as he strolls back around the counter in between a pack of customers waiting in line at his Westwood location.

But as he slowly turns the pitcher over, his intentions become clear ““ he’s doused the floor.

Then, something unexpected happens. The water soaks through the white and black gravel flooring, completely disappearing in seconds.

“The way it absorbs reminds you of the playground, like the sandbox or the beach,” he says.

The floors, along with virtually every other aspect of Pinkberry stores, are modeled in a style Lee calls “subconscious design.”

Using subtle sensory cues, customers’ psyches are manipulated to evoke positive childhood experiences, like building sand castles at the beach or playing on a jungle gym.

The powder blue ceilings simulate the sky, the French vanilla walls and pastel hues recall old-fashioned ice cream parlors and the blaring in-store music cues the excitement of hearing an ice cream truck approaching.

A focus on elaborate store design by Pinkberry and its competitors reflects the frozen yogurt vendors’ intentions of making their stores a space where customers feel comfortable lingering.

Red Mango has hired executives from Starbucks to replicate the social atmosphere that has become a signature at their coffee houses.

“These people understand service, they’ve worked under national brands that are recognized for their service,” said Kim. “Our goal is to become the premier luxury brand for yogurt.”

The setup seems to be working at the Westwood branch, where students can be seen with books laid out, curled up for hours in the store’s orange, brown and purple booths.

The science behind delicious

Just a decade ago, the notion of virtually fat-free frozen desserts would have elicited scoffs from serious sweets enthusiasts.

So the advent of a healthy frozen dessert so good it’s been dubbed “crackberry,” marks real progress in frozen foods technology, market experts say.

While the tart yogurts come in just a few elementary flavors ““ such as plain and green tea ““ developing the perfect mix is a nuanced science.

Academics studying frozen dessert technology and dairy chemistry at agricultural universities across the nation have been tapped by fro-yo vendors to tweak their formulas to perfection.

Temperature, says Pinkberry’s Lee, is key.

The colder the dessert, the more fat and sugar needed to ignite our taste buds.

That’s why tart nonfat frozen yogurt is served warmer than hard-packed ice cream and even gelato, a concoction so soft it’s customarily served with a spatula.

The next step is getting the air-to-solids ratio right. Tart frozen yogurts have an uncommonly high ratio.

“You have more solids in your mouth,” Tong said. “Instead of having air in your mouth you’ve got food solids, and they tend to give you better texture.”

Large ice crystals lodged in the dairy can slow flavor absorption, said Tong, who has worked with Pinkberry to improve their formula.

Keeping ice particles small, through proper freezing, speeds flavor release and adds a pleasing texture common among the new breed of frozen yogurts.

To keep the frozen treats healthy, dairy chemists try to guarantee a minimum level of probiotics ““ the active cultures in yogurts that aid digestion and boost the immune system.

Tong says the public is more health-conscious today then ever before.

“It’s a lifestyle thing,” he said. “The way people eat is quite different than how they ate 20 years ago.”

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