Going to the Dogs

It was one of those headlines that you just know aren’t going to pan out, but you have to look anyway: “Canadian students invent ice cream that is stored at room temperature.” Anyone who has ever suffered through the freeze-dried abomination that is marketed as “Astronaut Ice Cream” already knows that the idea of storing a frozen dessert at room temperature is something of a dodgy idea to anyone whose idea of sweets does not include Styrofoam packing kernels. And if you follow the link, you will find that, as expected, the story it leads to isn’t entirely the one the headline would lead you to expect; it’s just closer than usual…

The product in question, which really was developed by students at McGill University, is less hype than a self-churning sorbet that can be stored indefinitely at room temperature before you activate its nitrogen canister and throw it in the freezer. It isn’t really ice cream in the sense that it isn’t actually frozen until you leave it in the freezer for a few hours, and also in the sense that it’s a vegan product containing no dairy products of any kind – hence, neither iced nor cream. I’m personally a little dubious about flavors like “hibiscus and ginger or almond and pistachio” – if it doesn’t contain chocolate, caramel, or vanilla it’s not really ice cream, as far as I’m concerned. But a much larger issue, at least as I see it, is that the people who shop for ice cream and the people who shop for “vegan sorbet” aren’t really the same people. Or, to put it another way, I don’t believe that there is currently any defined market for this product…

Now, in fairness, there is some precedent for a non-dairy/vegan frozen dessert product, including at least one brand that has been around for the last 25 years; it’s just that this category of product does not appear to have ever achieved mainstream acceptance. Sold under the name brand of “Tofutti,” these products make use of frozen tofu (and various flavoring, texturing and coloring additives) to produce non-dairy products that look – and, to some extent, taste – like real ice cream products, but which contain no animal products of any kind. It’s a great idea, in its own way; the product in question is cheaper to make and more ecologically responsible than conventional dairy products, and is generally considered healthier to eat, as well. The problem is, no matter how adept you become at freezing and flavoring bean curd, it still doesn’t taste that much like ice cream…

In management terms, a product or company that has a relatively weak position in a relatively unattractive industry (or part of a larger industry) is classified as a Dog – not to be cruel; it’s just a technical term. But from a management or financial standpoint, a company whose primary product is neither growing explosively in market share or revenue (like a Ben and Jerry’s or a Coldstone Creamery) or maintaining a consistent and profitable control over a large market share (like a Baskin-Robins or a Carvell) or even taking a strong position in an unstable part of the industry (such as any good frozen yogurt company) is not an attractive prospect for investment and further development, and should probably be removed from your portfolio. At least, that has been the case until now…

It remains to be seen, of course, whether or not the new stabilizing agent developed at McGill will work on tofu products, or whether the ability to store them for months/years without refrigeration and then churn up a batch whenever you want it will be a sufficiently large change in the product to make it more widely popular. Unless the inventors can also come up with some way of making the product chill itself as well – just open the box and hit the activator, and the product will do the rest – I can’t see this effectively competing with any of the existing types of frozen dessert. But, I must admit, I’ve been wrong before…