Do you know what actually goes into your ice cream? That a 1litre tub of ice cream may actually only contain 500ml of ice cream?
We recently sat down with the team at Häagen-Dazs in their flagship store in Leicester Square, as they launch their new campaign, Real or Nothing.
Getting on the tube at Euston, the TV screens are replaying their gorgeous campaign imagery over and over highlighting what Häagen-Dazs have been doing for 53 years. The ‘Real Emotions’ advertising campaign features a series of real couples who were candidly shot while they interacted to prove that in love or ice cream, nothing is better than real.
The founder of Häagen-Dazs, Reuban Mattus, created the original Vanilla flavour using five ingredients; milk, cream, sugar, eggs and vanilla and the recipe has stayed the same today. As consumers are getting more aware about what goes into their food and where is comes from, Haagen-Dazs have created this campaign in a bid to educated buyers.
They use Bourbon Vanilla in their ice cream which comes from the coastal area of Madagascar where some of the highest quality vanilla is grown. In their Strawberries and Cream flavour, they don’t use artificial strawberry flavours; instead they grown their own and once picked, they are frozen to ensure that the goodness is preserved naturally. Their Belgium Chocolate ice cream (as the name suggests) is made from chocolate sourced from Belgium as that is considered one of the world’s chocolate authorities.
This type of care in the produce even goes down to the cows they use for the milk and cream and the land they graze on! the team looked at 17 different areas in France and finally settled on a region just north of Paris where the quality of dairy was the best, meaning Häagen-Dazs could produce the best type of ice cream.
Reuban Mattus’ vision for Häagen-Dazs was that it would be the ultimate indulgent treat, and because of the care and consideration that goes into producing a tub of Häagen-Dazs, it’s no wonder that it is based in the premium price bracket, with a tub costing around £4.50.
Because only 5 ingredients are used, you can easily make your own vanilla Häagen-Dazs ice cream at home. This video featuring Natalie Coleman, a straight-talking chef and Real or Nothing advocate, shows us just how easy it is to make the ice cream in your own home.
She also says, “I believe that the key to quality food is to carefully select your ingredients. It’s the same with quality ice cream. I’m working with Häagen-Dazs to celebrate good, old-fashioned, real ice cream – we believe that it is one of life’s simplest pleasures and should remain as such.”
Alongside educating consumers about what goes into their ice cream, Jim Moseley, Managing Director of Häagen-Dazs UK has said that they are also “engaging with government and industry stakeholders to urge a change to the current practice in the UK of labelling ice cream by volume. Haagen-Dazs is campaigning for ice cream to be labelled by weight as a fairer, more empowering way for consumers to make their purchase decisions. Because of the universal practice of adding air to ice cream products, labelling ice cream by weight gives consumers a real basis to make more meaningful comparisons of product quantity and value for money.”
We tucked into these delicious treats and we would love our readers to take a picture next time they tuck into Häagen-Dazs ice cream at tweet us @STYLE_etc with the hashtag #realornothing and we will retweet them!
By Emily Parker
With Thanks to Häagen-Dazs and See-Saw
