"Unilever" news and stories

Okay, I'm going to get something out in the open here: I am somewhat biased when it comes to Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Just in case the title of this post wasn't enough to make my feelings clear, I want you to know that, from where I stand, the famed ice cream makers share moral ground with Kim Philby, John Walker, and Robert Hanssen. In my house, we don't use the term "Benedict Arnold." For us, the gold standard of betrayal takes the form of two Vermont pseudo-hippies, and the phrase "You're a total...Ben and Jerry!" can be the prelude to a massive battle royale.

Even so, I'll try to be fair.

When I was a kid, long before Ben and Jerry's became a household term, I met the pair at a book show in Washington D.C. They were hawking their ice cream cookbook and, as a young cook and avid bibliophile, I eagerly snapped up the signed first edition of their tome. Although I left the DC convention center that day with several huge bags of books, Ben and Jerry's slim volume was in my lap, and I read it and reread it repeatedly over the next few days.

Although it was to be a long time before Ben and Jerry's came to our neck of the woods, I mixed up several of their recipes in my little ice cream maker. I loved them all. In Massachusetts, where my family spent our summers, B&J's was available in a few of the markets, so my sisters and I were able to try out a few of the famous flavors. We absolutely adored them.

Sounds terrible - an ice cream made from fish, but it could make an ice cream that won't pile on the pounds as you eat.

The Times has a report that Unilever, which produces Wall's, Magnums, Carte D'Or and Ben and Jerry's ice cream has applied to the UK's Food Standards Agency for permission to use a fish protein in a range of ice creams and fruit ices. The North Atlantic Pout is an eel-like fish whose blood, using GM technology, has been made into a protein that will cut the fat and calories in ice cream.

If accepted it could be 2008 before the protein appears in products.

Despite the fact that the technology leaves no edible traces of GM material in the finished product - rather like the use of vegetarian rennet in cheese the use of a GM product has been criticized by many as a "stealth" way to introduce a GM product.

Source

A new U.K.-based ad campaign for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter will feature Ozzy Osbourne and celebrity impersonator Jon Culshaw playing Ozzy Osbourne. The crux of the television ad, launched by Unilever UK Foods, is that neither the fake Ozzy or the real Oz-Man himself can discern between real butter and the butter-like spread.

“I can't believe it's not Butter' now tastes so much like butter that the two Ozzies can't tell the difference,” a Unilever brand manager told Checkout Magazine.

The ads accompany a re-launch of the product with a new recipe and a new package.