... And a look at the year ahead.

Shaping up as a major story for 2006 is whether the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) will rewrite the federal Standards of Identity for ice cream and other frozen desserts along the lines proposed by the International Ice Cream Association (IICA) and its parent organization, the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA). Should the FDA opt for the revisions, it will create some of the most significant changes for manufacturers, suppliers, and consumers that have taken place in many years.

The petition was originally filed in 2003 with the avowed purpose of updating the Standards of Identity to reflect the availability of technologies and ingredients that didn't exist when the standards were written nearly 30 years ago. In its most recent filings in support of the changes, the IICA noted: "The vast array of safe and suitable ingredients have different market prices throughout the year and are often substitutable. Formulators need to have the ability to make reasonable adjustments to their formulas within certain ranges in order to maximize quality while keeping the price attractive to consumers. "

Currently grabbing the most attention is the request by ice cream manufacturers that the standard be changed to allow milk from animals other than cows, to be used in making ice cream without any labeling to that effect. U.S. milk producers are, to say the least, less than keen on the idea, characterizing it as an effort by the ice cream makers to cut costs by replacing American-produced cow's milk with the less expensive foreign-produced alternatives of questionable quality. For example, critics of the proposed change say the change would allow for milk from water buffalos could be imported from India to replace cow's milk.

The use of source animals other than cows is only one item in the petition. Also included is a request for changes regarding the use of nondairy ingredients so long as they have "a useful purpose and do not adversely impact the nutritional quality of the frozen dessert ... or alter the basic nature or essential characteristics of the food." The goal here is to be able to add nutraceutical ingredients, such as Omega-3 fatty acids, that are becoming increasingly popular with health-conscious consumers.

Another big change would be in the area of alternative production procedures, such as the use of high-pressure liquid carbon dioxide atomization in a cryogenic chamber. The IICA claims this new approach would be less expensive and could have "unique and desirable properties." However, this process would not meet the current requirements that describe ice cream as "a food produced by freezing while stirring."

The petition also calls for the removal of the requirement of the maximum 25-percent restriction on whey solids in ice cream and frozen custard, calling it "one of the most important aspects of IICA's proposal. The proposed change would allow for any combination of safe and suitable dairy-derived ingredients, provided the proposed minimum milk-derived protein content is satisfied. The IICA "strongly asserts" that whey proteins, "highly valued for their nutritional value, functionality, and taste" have too long been under-utilized in terms of their functionality.

Another big change called for in the petition is to simplify the categories of ingredient names required on frozen dessert labels. For example, buttermilk, sweet cream buttermilk, condensed or dried buttermilk could all be declared as "buttermilk." The IICA asserts that the milk-derived ingredients that are proposed to be included in the within the common name categories are nutritionally and functionally equivalent when used in frozen desserts, and therefore, consumers would not be deceived by the proposed categories because the final product would be nutritionally equivalent regardless of which individual ingredient was used within the class.

Affecting flavor and other ingredient suppliers would be the proposed removal of the requirements for the amounts of fruits, fruit juices, and nut meats needed to determine if an artificial flavor simulating a characterizing flavor is the predominant flavor when naming an ice cream or frozen dessert product. The IICA states that under its proposed amendments, the manufacturer would determine whether the natural or artificial flavor ingredients provides the characterizing flavor of the product and would label the product accordingly. In its petition, IICA also proposes changing the requirements in sherbet for the amounts of fruit or fruit juice from a minimum of 6% for berry sherbets and a minimum of 10% for sherbets from other fruits to a minimum of 2%.

IICA believes the current requirements prescribing the minimum amount of flavorant that regarding how much flavorant must be used and defining flavor "predominance," are too rigid and "pose an obstacle to the manufacturer's ability to declare actual flavorant usage accurately in product labeling." It explains that this problem has become amplified by innovations in flavor development which affect the amounts of flavors that are used and the relative predominance of flavors used in various combinations.

The IICA proposal would eliminates the required minimum flavorant levels for citrus, berry, other fruits and nuts, leaving it to the discretion of the manufacturer to determine whether the natural or artificial ingredients provide the characterizing flavor of the product, and label the product accordingly.

The IICA claims that the removal of the minimum fruit percentage will allow manufacturers to utilize a wider variety of natural flavors and flavoring ingredients, and also provide greater efficiency for both the manufacturer and the consumer. However, the IICA's proposal would retain the current provisions specifying artificial flavoring nomenclature when a combination of vanilla beans or vanilla extract is used with vanillin.