Dutch firm invents low-fat, healthier ice cream

Dutch company Unimills, owned by Malaysian plantation giant Golden Hope, said it has invented an ice cream with a low level of saturated fat, making the summer's favourite treat healthier. Scientists have warned in the past few years that ice cream is not healthy food because of its high levels of sugar-based calories and saturated fat, which is blamed for raising the level of cholesterol and the risk of heart disease.

Ice cream manufacturers around the world have been looking for fat and sugar alternatives to address health concerns.

"The main problems of ice cream today are the sugar and the saturated fat levels. We have now found a solution to the latter problem," Gerhard de Ruiter, research and development manager at Unimills, told Reuters.

"We have invented a revolutionary formula that significantly lowers the saturated fat level in both coconut oil and dairy butter-based ice cream," he said.

Unimills, which produces tailor-made vegetable oils, declined to announce more details on the new ice cream fats, saying it would unveil the secret when it launches the products for commercial use in September.

De Ruiter said his company's researchers were the first in the world to significantly lower the content of saturated fat, while keeping the taste of ice cream good.

Food manufacturers in Europe have cut the total fat content in ice cream to an average of 8 percent from about 12 percent five years ago in response to studies that listed the dessert among unhealthy foods.

Saturated fats - found in dairy products, meat and tropical oils such as coconut and palm oils - account for about 70 percent of total fats in dairy butter-based ice creams and about 90 percent in those based on coconut oil, de Ruiter said.

Most ice creams produced in Europe use coconut oil.

Unimills General Manager Alexander van der Klauw said the new ice cream fats had gone passed factory tests.

Unimills was now looking to talk to all leading ice cream producers in the world, including its former owner, Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever, to sell them their new formula.

The company, acquired by Golden Hope in 2002, will sign a four-year collaboration agreement with leading Dutch food research company NIZO later this month to work on innovation projects for margarines, spreads and bakery products.

Van der Klauw said Golden Hope will open a pilot plant in the Netherlands next week, where Unimills can use enzymes - natural macromolecule catalysts - instead of chemicals to reduce saturated and trans fat levels in vegetable oils.

Unimills' refinery produces about 450,000 tonnes of tailor-made oils a year for food producers all over Europe.