New regulations coming into force this week will allow ‘artificial’ ice cream to be sold which fails to meet the standards adhered to for more than 100 years.
Until now ice cream had to contain minimum amounts of milk and fat in order to pass the legal food standards but due to EU rules this is no longer the case.
Zelica Carr, chief executive of The Ice Cream Alliance, said: “This EU rule change has opened the floodgates to inferior products coming onto the market purporting to be traditional ice cream.
“This poses a real threat to the quality of ice cream on sale in the UK and we are determined to do all we can to protect our much loved ice cream.”
Now the trade association for the UK ice cream industry, The Ice Cream Alliance, has launched a campaign to protect the public from artificial ice cream by launching its own national quality standard.
Carr added: “We are launching an ICA quality standard to let people know that when they see our logo displayed by vendors they will get a quality product. The UK ice cream industry is worth more than £1bn to the economy and one of the reasons for its success is its great taste and high quality ingredients.
“By looking for the ICA logo consumers can be sure that they are buying a traditional ice cream made with milk protein and dairy ice cream made only with milk, fat and protein.”
The national standards for the composition of ice cream were removed on December 13th 2014 after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) adopted EU rules.