Jul
7
The Science Behind the Slow Churn Miracle
July 7, 2007 | 2 Comments
I love ice cream, but eating an entire carton in one sitting has always made me feel guilty. That is, until Dr
eyers/Edy’s introduced their Slow Churn brand. Slow Churn accomplishes the impossible. It is a low fat ice cream that tastes amazing. The innovation that makes this possible is called low-temperature extrusion. Before we look this new technique, let’s take a second and understand what ice cream is made of.
Traditional ice cream is a mixture of unmixable ingredients: water, egg, fat and air. While ice cream appears homogeneous, it’s really a finely dispersed mixture. We call a stabilized dispersion of immiscible ingredients, such as ice cream, an emulsion.
The character of the emulsion determines its quality. So called “super-premium” ice cream like Ben and Jerry’s is dense and creamy. That’s because the emulsion has a high ratio of fat molecules compared to ice crystals and air bubbles. This makes that ice cream taste better, but you pay for it in higher fat.
Ice cream makers have long used tricks to reduce the fat content of ice cream. However, messing with the mixture often has a corresponding effect on taste. Increased air or the addition of gums and stabilizers has been used to compensate for the lack of fat. This has its biggest impact on the texture. Low fat ice creams were either light and airy or lacked the creaminess of their super-premium counterparts.
Researchers however had hope. They discovered that decreasing the size of air bubbles in the ice cream greatly increased its perceived creaminess. If they could shrink the bubbles, they could lower the fat content and maintain the taste. They thought if they forced the emulsion through tiny pores (extruded it), they could shrink the size of the bubbles. It worked. However, there was an unintended consequence.
The pressure required to force ice cream through tiny pores created enough heat to melt the ice cream slightly. Anyone who has refrozen ice cream knows that melting causes water droplets to congregate and refreeze into larger ice shards. These shards kill the smooth creamy texture.
So all they had to do was keep the ice cream frozen while they forced it through the holes. “Why don’t we just cool it down?”, the researchers thought. And so they did, and low-temperature extrusion was born. By mixing the ice cream at 0-5 degrees F, rather than 24 degrees F, Slow Churn was born.
The results are astounding. Slow Churn combines super-premium taste with diet ice cream nutritional facts. It is quite possibly the greatest ice creamovation since the advent of the home freezer. There really is no trick to bite you in the ass (think slip-and-slide Olestra intestine.) You should seriously try it. And now, now you know how it’s made.
Too lazy to cite specifics, but here is where I got the information:
Jul
5
Radio’s Marketing Mistake
July 5, 2007 | 24 Comments
Why do radio stations continue to use call signals to identify themselves? The system dates back to 1912 and it only benefits FCC bookkeepers. But these cryptic codes are terribly unmemorable names for consumers. Did you know that Newspapers have call signs as well? Why doesn’t the New York Times print as WNYT? Because it is horrible business practice, that’s why.
Names should be memorable not just because they are repeated over and over again. Yahoo!, Target and craigslist come to mind. A name should says something about both the station and the listener. The Prius is a memorable name which people can identify with. Prius means hybrid; it says “I’m doing my part, how about you?”. How many people identify with KRLS? What does listening to KDUK say about you?
Some people get it. Jack FM is building a national brand name in radio that stands for no-DJ-nonsense music. They even have a tag line “Playing what we want.” Now that says something about the station and the listener. Jack is one of the more popular radio franchises around the country. They are making bundles by sticking to basic marketing principles.
Others kind of get it. Stations like KROQ in Los Angeles matched their genre (Rock) to their call signal (ROQ.) However, there is little room to differentiate with this approach. On the west coast, all stations start with the letter K. Would this fly in any other industry? What if soft-drink companies did this? You would have Coca Cola, Cuny Cola, Cobs Cola and so forth. Something tells me that would get confusing fast. Yet, radio has been doing it for years.
This seems to me to be a case where a company is exposing the underlying technology of a product to the consumer unnecessarily. Programmers fall into this trap a lot when they try to build a front end to their creation. No one cares that the FCC identifies you as KISS, just like no one cares about how you architect your database. It should be invisible to the consumer. The same should true of radio stations.
I can’t wait to tell a friend I listen to a station called The Grind or Tantric. Now that could catch my attention. Wake up radio.
Jul
4
Time to Scoop Up JetBlue?
July 4, 2007 | 1 Comment
JetBlue (jblu) has had one hell of a year. First, management was clobbered by an ice storm in the northeast. Passengers were left stranded on the tarmac for hours, flights were canceled and and that was just the beginning. The delays rippled through Jet Blue’s network when pilots, planes and staff weren’t where they were expected to be.
Jet Blue’s reputation and its stock have taken a major hit. Interestingly, this is the first black eye for the discount airliner, usually praised for its customer service. The question is, will people avoid flying JetBlue?
I, personally, doubt it. Up to this point, JetBlue has been one of the only airlines to garner any kind of customer loyalty. They routinely put the needs and wishes of the customer first with better snacks, more leg room and personal satellite television sets. Consumer reports surveys agree, routinely ranking JetBlue atop their list of best airlines. Management process to avoid this kind of catastrophe in the future should be reasonable task.
So would I recommend JetBlue as a long term holding? Absolutely not. Save Southwest, airline stocks have created little value for investors. They are interesting cyclical businesses though and I believe we are ready for an upturn. That sounds crazy right? Oil prices are high, and JetBlue is a long haul airline. They get hit especially hard when prices increase. So why is now a time to buy?
It is important to invest in cyclical industries when there is blood of the streets. When times are obviously bad, and few people are obviously paying attention, it is time to invest. When cyclical stocks fall out of favor, scoop them up. It’s time to scoop up JetBlue.