Fat levels in ice-cream and consumer acceptability

Does higher-fat ice-cream really taste better? The answer is no, according to Penn State University researchers, because on the whole consumers can’t tell the difference between fat levels in ice-creams.

“I think the most important finding in our study was that there were no differences in consumer acceptability when changing fat content within a certain range,” said Laura Rolon, a former graduate student in food science and lead author of the study. “There is a preconception of ‘more fat is better’, but we did not see it within our study.”

In a series of taste tests, participants were unable to distinguish a 2% difference in fat levels in two vanilla ice-cream samples as long as the samples were in the 6–12% fat-level range. While the subjects were able to detect a 4% difference between ice-cream with 6 and 10% fat levels, they could not detect a 4% fat difference in samples between 8 and 12% fat.

Not only were the consumers unable to distinguish between fat levels, the levels did not affect their ‘liking’ of the ice-cream. Their liking stayed the same even when the fat content dropped from 14 to 6%, for example.

The traditional belief is that consumers prefer ice-cream with higher fat levels, but this research is not supporting this. So ice-cream manufacturers may be able to adjust their formulae to help control costs and create products for customers with certain dietary restrictions without sacrificing taste

The researchers released their findings in a recent issue of the Journal of Dairy Science.