The explosion of frozen (refined by Italians over the centuries) was accompanied by a explosion in the technology of refrigeration: yes, people have been eating industrial ice cream for 75 years.
It is also probably the most popular frozen dessert in the world; but the story with him has only just begun. Or at least, that’s what some companies think.
The history of ice cream, technologically speaking
In short, the same goes for pasta or pizza: no one is sure where it came from, or how it got to Italy; but what is clear is that as soon as they appeared, the Italians created a product revolution. It is often said that the recipe for “sorbet” came from China at the hands of Marco Polo, but there is not much evidence (it is possible that the Arabs introduced it to Sicily).
However, after falling into the hands of Cosimo I de’ Medici, everything changed. He was responsible for the popularity of ice cream throughout Europe and was one of the great inventions of the Renaissance. Of course: it is still something expensive, rare and localized.
It was the 19th century that, like so many other things, contributed to its popularity. Italian immigrants brought them across the industrialized world, and it was that industry that was responsible for making the most of them.
And it is that, although many know how ice cream machines work, industrial ice cream requires a large number of processes (mixing, homogenization, pasteurization, aeration or freezing) and, although over time, technology made it possible to use more and more ingredients, the great ice cream revolution occurred less than a century ago.
In recent years, glaciers have, of course, developed new approaches: low-temperature extrusion, ultra-high-pressure homogenization, freezing or pre-aeration. Nevertheless, As always, the best (hopefully) is yet to come.
This would be the future of ice cream
Today, innovation in the world of ice cream focuses above all on get a better taste and especially in improve refrigeration processes to make them more economical and sustainable. In a situation like the current one, with sky-high inflation and skyrocketing energy prices, this type of innovation is more necessary than ever, but there is more to the story.
The first thing that strikes you when looking at the growing ice cream trend today is the power of plant-based formulations. Unlike the “fake meat” market, which after the initial boom has collapsed: ice creams without animal ingredients continue to grow at a good pace and this has forced manufacturers who in recent years have had to develop new techniques, in which milk is not included, in addition to its derivatives.
Secondly, the robotics plays a very important role not only in the development of new ice creams, but also in allowing greater customization. Unilever, one of the ice cream giants in the world, discovered just before the pandemic that the trucks, thanks to this new approach, could offer a wide range of ice cream to consumers (much larger than that with which we are familiar).
However, and curiously, the area of greatest interest is clearly the development of fat-free creams (or use better fats), but which retain their organoleptic properties. A close example is Qubiq Foods, which has spent years trying to get the most out of vegetable oils: “smart fats” an emulsion of water and oil that preserves its texture and consistency, just like ice cream, with healthier fats, such as olive oil.
But the palm is managed by a small Swedish start-up, Lub Foods, which uses vegetable oils (EPG) whose molecular structure is resistant to the effects of human digestive enzymes and therefore cannot be absorbed. In other words, it is a fat that makes the mouth fat, but it does not get fat because it cannot be metabolized.
