Engelholms Glass doesn’t compromise when it comes to sugar reduction

It’s 25 degrees in the shade and the sun is shin­ing when we arrive in Ängelholm in Skåne. Perfect weath­er for an ice cream. At Engelholms Glass all four pro­duc­tion lines are work­ing at full speed from morn­ing ’til night. During the sum­mer months the work force is near­ly the dou­ble, enabling this tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly busi­ness to keep up with their cus­tomers’ crav­ing for ice cream.

Inside the fac­to­ry a soft scent of vanil­la wafts through the air, soft­en­ing the oth­er­wise strict­ly con­trolled fac­to­ry envi­ron­ment. Every year 1.6 mil­lion litres of ice cream is man­u­fac­tured here. During the sum­mer about 50,000 ice cream lol­lies are cast, and around 30,000 cones are filled every day. Together with litre tubs for super­mar­kets and scoop ice cream this means about 15-20 thou­sand litres of ice cream. In oth­er words, things are awful­ly busy here at Engelholms Glass in the begin­ning of July.

– This year’s ice cream sea­son has had a pret­ty good start. April had a good start but May, not quite as much. June, on the oth­er hand, is going along quite nice­ly, says Calle Gudmundsson, CEO.

Run by the second and third generation

He has many years for com­par­i­son. Already dur­ing his school hol­i­days in the 1960s, Calle worked at Engelholms Mejeriförening [dairy asso­ci­a­tion], an ice cream mak­er found­ed in 1937. His father Gunnar was the dairy man­ag­er and in 1975 he con­vinced Calle to leave his pro­fes­sion as a chef and take up ice cream man­u­fac­tur­ing the dairy instead.

Only a few years lat­er Engelholms Mejeriförening fused with Helsingborgs Mjölkcentral [Central Dairy], and they decid­ed to can­cel the ice cream pro­duc­tion in 1977. The Gudmundsson’s took a col­lec­tive deep breath, went to the bank and put it all on ice, well, on ice cream that is.

– There’s a lot of ice cream talk at our fam­i­ly din­ners, laughs Calle’s daugh­ter Lisa Gudmundsson.

Natural ingredients

She is the qual­i­ty man­ag­er and very much a part of the prod­uct devel­op­ment togeth­er with her broth­ers Patrik and Peter, who are pro­duc­tion man­agers. Aunt Cecilia, head of finance, keeps an eye on the numbers.

And Engelholms Glass is doing well. Ever since they start­ed, the com­pa­ny has as far as pos­si­ble used local­ly pro­duced and nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents, and cream as a basis for the ice cream. Small scale, nat­ur­al and local­ly pro­duced are today some of the most promi­nent con­sumer trends.

– As a small com­pa­ny, and with the ingre­di­ents we use, we can’t com­pete on price. But today peo­ple are pre­pared to pay for local­ly pro­duced and nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents, says Lisa Gudmundsson.

A clear health trend

Another clear trend, Lisa Gudmundsson points out, is health, with focus on e.g. lac­tose free, veg­an and sug­ar reduction.

– Whether it regards your dai­ly diet, soft drinks, ice cream or sweets, remains to be seen. Consumer demand dic­tates what we devel­op. Right now we’re plan­ning the new prod­ucts for 2020. So now we have to be atten­tive to what kinds of ice cream the con­sumers might want.

Engelholms Glass is well pre­pared. They have had alter­na­tives to reg­u­lar ice cream in their range for a long time. At first they used the sweet­en­er aspar­tame. The ice cream then tast­ed almost the same as their reg­u­lar dairy ice cream.

But there were two prob­lems. Aspartame is a con­tro­ver­sial sweet­en­er. When ste­via got its EU approval they switched the aspar­tame to a sweet­en­er based on ste­via. However, you still could­n’t remove the glu­cose syrup that gave the ice cream its texture.

– Then we got the sug­ges­tion to try Eureba, which replaces the glu­cose syrup 1:1 with “sweet­ened fibres”. Where the sweet­ness in our case comes from ste­via. We end­ed up with a prod­uct that was much bet­ter for peo­ple with dia­betes than before, explains Lisa Gudmundsson.

Eureba lends the right texture

In 2011, when it was approved, Engelholms Glass switched aspar­tame for ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides, the sweet sub­stance of the ste­via plant.

– It all seemed so good, when ste­via came to the mar­ket. But it gave the ice cream a sharp, metal­lic after­taste with a hint of liquorice. We had to add oth­er aro­mas, but it did­n’t feel right, says Calle Gudmundsson.

Besides, the recipe still need­ed the glu­cose syrup.

But a cou­ple of years ago they came into con­tact with Bayn, who pre­sent­ed Eureba – a ste­via based ingre­di­ent that replaces sug­ar 1:1 and gives the same tex­ture, with less than 0.01 grams of sug­ar per 100 grams of Eureba.

– Eureba is the best that we have found. Now we have a smooth prod­uct with a tex­ture and mouth­feel as good as reg­u­lar ice cream, and it enhances the flavours in a good way. We have achieved an opti­mal prod­uct for peo­ple with dia­betes and for oth­ers who want to avoid sug­ar, explains Calle Gudmundsson

The customers like the taste

Another advan­tage of Eureba is the sim­plic­i­ty. Engelholms Glass already had a tried and test­ed recipe.

– Thanks to the pos­si­bil­i­ty to sim­ply exchange the glu­cose syrup for Eureba we could skip the com­plex and time con­sum­ing work of devel­op­ing a new recipe, says Lisa Gudmundsson.

Lisa and Calle are not the only ones who are hap­py with the result. The cus­tomers like it too.

– It’s a small­er tar­get group, but the ice cream sells well. It’s made with a good recipe result­ing in a nutri­tious prod­uct. This is impor­tant in for exam­ple the care of the elder­ly, where a good and nutri­tious diet is required, Lisa Gudmundsson points out.

A logistical puzzle

In the fac­to­ry two litre tubs and cones, cups and lol­lies are con­tin­u­ous­ly pro­duced in dif­fer­ent flavours and vari­eties. Sprinkles, choco­late drops and jams are added to give each kind its unique iden­ti­ty. It’s a logis­ti­cal puzzle.

Engelholms Glass has 36 dif­fer­ent flavours of scoop ice cream and 26 dif­fer­ent pre-packed ice creams for kiosks. On top of that comes the super­mar­ket range and all the pri­vate label pro­duc­tion for oth­er brands. The lat­ter makes up 20-25% of the production.

– Yes, it can be a bit tricky to make it all come togeth­er. But we are flex­i­ble and have a pas­sion for pro­duc­tion. And of course we have a lot of expe­ri­ence, says Calle Gudmundsson with a lit­tle smile.