Business & Technology
The Frozen Yogurt Wars
Plugging into health and weight worries, new brands battle for national dominance
lem318@nyu.edu
Move over, Tom Carvel. No longer is frozen yogurt the plain vanilla ice cream parlor afterthought.
Tapping into Americans’ rising concern over health and weight, national and international yogurt and low-cal ice cream chains are elbowing one another in the quest to become the lowfat desert-lover’s top brand.
The popular California yogurt chain Pinkberry is fanning out around the country, setting up 17 shops in New York, and eyeing Las Vegas and London. The South Korean brand Red Mango reportedly plans to open as many as 20 stores in New York, Miami, Chicago and San Diego in 2007, and another 10 to 20 shops in 2008.
Tasti D-Lite, a New York City lo-cal dessert brand established in 1987, is likewise jumping into the fray, with 10 shops in Texas, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Florida, and further aggressive national and international expansion plans. And Edgewater, New Jersey-based Yolato – which fashions itself as a Pinkberry competitor — also claims to be spreading, though so far it has outlets only in New York City and New Jersey.
“Healthier eating trends spark frozen yogurt sales,” said Mark Liebel, Tasti-D-Lite’s director of operations, adding that he believes the concept is here to stay.
Los Angeles and New York are the first cities on yogurt companies’ radar. These cities have almost as many yogurt outlets as Starbucks.
Downtown Manhattan, home to the hip and wealthy, is ground zero for yogurt competition. On Greenwich Village’s famed Bleecker Street, Red Mango is building a shop diagonally across the street from Pinkberry. Tasti D-Lite has a shop one block away. Yolato is a block north, on McDougal Street.
Representatives of each brand claim to be unworried by such intense competition.
“Corporately, we see Pinkberry and Yolato as competitors,” said Tasti D-Lite’s Liebel. “However, both are very different products in taste and texture, so they really are not comparative.”
Yolato briefly lost business when Pinkberry opened nearby, but sales bounced back within a week, said Sandra Lowery, the manager of Yolato’s Macdougal Street location. She’s no longer worried: Yolato has a large selection of flavors, such as birthday cake and mango, she boasted, while Tasti D-Lite only offers a few flavors each day.
And Pinkberry has “the same thing every day” with only original or green tea flavors, said Amanda Cruz, another Tasti-D-Lite manager.
So far in New York, only Pinkberry can boast lines out the door. Customers often wait more than twenty minutes to get their cup, rather than go around the corner to another chain.
Chris Flynn, who was on line at Pinkberry, said he usually goes to Yolato, but had decided to give the competition a try. Which place he visits depends on his mood.
“If I feel like Pinkberry flavor, I go to Pinkberry. If I feel like birthday cake, I go to Yolato,” he said.
Another customer agreed that there was plenty of room for plenty of styles of yogurt.
Said regular Pinkberry customer Nadia Tuffaha: “A lot of people in bigger cities are more body conscious.”
California yogurt chain Pinkberry is developing a nearly cult following on the right coast, too. Photo by Leslie Minora
Reps of the low-cal dessert chain Tasti D-Lite say they’re not worried; their product is nothing like yogurt. Photo by Leslie Minora
Northeast U.S. chain Yolato seems to be setting up shops very near to Pinkberry outlets. Photo by Leslie Minora