First Northern Irish Low-Fat Frozen Yoghurt

Northern Ireland's first low-fat frozen yoghurt has been launched by Morelli, the award winning Italian ice cream producer. The company, based at Coleraine in county Londonderry, has been producing ice cream in Northern Ireland for more than 100 years and has a collection of UK Great Taste Awards as a measure of its commitment to outstanding taste and innovative flavours.

The new frozen yoghurt has a fat content of just four per cent and has been developed by the company to meet the growing trend towards healthier desserts, particularly among women and young people.

The ice cream maker has teamed up with another Northern Ireland artisan dairy business, Clandeboye Estate Yoghurt in Bangor, county Down, another UK Great Taste winner, to develop the new product.

Morelli is using Clandeboye's popular Greek-style yoghurt and has added two flavours, Strawberry and Amarena Cherry, which are marbled through the product. The frozen yoghurt has been launched this month in the company's scoop cabinets in ice cream parlours and other stores across Northern Ireland to gain feedback from customers.

Morelli also has plans to make frozen yoghurt more widely available and is exploring opportunities for a product using a sugar replacement. The company already supplies a diabetes-friendly ice cream using fructose as a sugar replacement.

Arnaldo Morelli, a director of the family-owned and managed business, says: "Our strategic focus is on developing new and innovative products and flavours. We looked closely at market opportunities in sorbets and frozen yoghurt and came down in favour of the latter because it was the best low-fat option to meet market demand.

"While sorbets are certainly low-fat, they tend to have a high sugar content which can be a problem for those consumers seeking healthier dessert or snack options. The frozen yoghurt is the outcome of research and product development over more than a year in response to data on market trends.

"The decision was also influenced by our longstanding family and business links with Italy where there's a renaissance in demand for soft serve frozen yoghurt.

"We teamed up with Clandeboye because we were keen to work with another artisan producer in Northern Ireland.

"Initial feedback has been immensely positive and encouraged us to believe that we've created another market winner," he adds.

Morelli currently offers 40 ice cream flavours, a number of which it supplies to major retailers such as Tesco and Sainsbury.