EU ice cream standard revised

The future of traditional ice cream in the UK is under threat after the removal of long standing quality standards by the EU, according to UK trade association The Ice Cream Alliance. New regulations coming into force this week will allow “artificial” ice cream to be sold which fails to meet the standards adhered to for more than 100 years, it says. Until now ice cream had to contain minimum amounts of milk and fat in order to pass the legal food standard but due to EU rules this is no longer the case.

The Ice Cream Alliance has launched a campaign to protect the public from artificial ice cream by launching its own national quality standard. “This EU rule change has opened the floodgates to inferior products coming onto the market purporting to be traditional ice cream,” said Zelica Carr, chief executive officer of The Ice Cream Alliance. “This poses a real threat to the quality of ice cream on sale in the UK and we are determined to do all we can to protect our much loved traditional ice cream. We are launching an ICA quality standard to let people know that when they see our logo displayed by vendors they will get a quality product. The UK ice cream industry is worth more than £1bn to the economy and one of the reasons for its success is its great taste and high quality ingredients. Without a legal standard in place there is nothing stopping manufacturers using meat protein and meat fats instead of milk and calling it ice cream. By looking for the ICA logo consumers can be sure that they are buying a traditional ice cream made with milk protein and dairy ice cream made only with milk fat and protein.”

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