Indulgent and Asian-inspired are the current flavour trends in soft serve ice cream, according to Frosty Boy Australia.
“The current soft serve ice cream flavour trends can be split into two markets,” says Frosty Boy National Sales and Marketing Manager, Felipe Demartini.
“The first trend is targeted to the premium soft serve market exploring indulgent flavours such as Belgium chocolate and salted caramel soft serve.
“The second trend is derived from an Asian influence. Over the past six months this trend has grown exponentially and includes green tea or black sesame seed flavoured soft serve ice cream.
“Everyone is looking for something different and with the Asian population in Australia increasing, we are seeing this cultural influence filter to dessert.”
Mr Demartini said flavours this year would share a closer link to seasons or special days such as Valentine’s Day.
“There is a huge trend towards ‘red velvet’ across all desserts and we predict this to be more prominent in the soft serve market as we get closer to Valentine’s Day,” he said.
“Similarly, as we get closer to Easter there will be demand for decadent, rich chocolate soft serve ice cream.”
Demartini expected flavours to continue to have an international influence.
“The dessert market is constantly changing and in 2016 we could expect sweet pumpkin from America or sweet corn from South America to be part of soft serve trend flavours,” he said.