12 Grocery Store 'Ice Creams' That Aren't Actually Ice Cream

Ice cream. Frozen yogurt. Gelato. Sorbet. These are just a few frozen treats occupying your supermarket's freezer aisle. However, if you take a closer look at the ice cream options, you may notice the word "ice cream" is nowhere to be found on some of the labels. Instead, they're stamped with another phrase: frozen dairy dessert. But, what even is that?

According to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, a product can only be classified as ice cream if it meets the following criteria:

1. Contains at least 1.6 pounds of total solids to the gallon
2. Weighs no less than 4.5 pounds to the gallon
3. Contains no less than 20 percent total milk solids and no less than 10% milkfat solids, except when it contains milkfat at 1% increments above the 10% minimum

If an item doesn't meet these requirements, it cannot be labeled as ice cream. In addition to having different compositions, these frozen products can potentially vary in their nutritional content, according to Lauren Manaker, MS, RDN, LD, a registered dietitian on the Eat This, Not That! medical review board.

Manaker notes that the higher percentage of milk fat gives ice cream a "rich and creamy texture," but it also adds fat and calories. Meanwhile, she says frozen dairy desserts often have less milk fat and more air, resulting in a lower fat content and fewer calories.

"These [frozen dairy dessert] products might include additional ingredients like stabilizers and emulsifiers to mimic the texture of ice cream," Manaker says. "Consequently, while frozen dairy desserts can be a lighter alternative, they may also come with a longer list of additives compared to the straightforward composition of traditional ice cream."

In other words: a frozen dairy dessert could seem healthier, but upon closer inspection, you could actually be consuming more artificial ingredients.

To help you discern the frozen dairy desserts from the real deal, here are 12 ice cream imposters sitting in your grocery store's freezer.

Oreo Frozen Dairy Desserts

In 2022, Oreo ventured into the frozen dessert space with the rollout of bars, cones, sandwiches, and scoopable tubs. While these treats may look like ice cream, they're not labeled as such, which means they don't meet the FDA's ice cream standards.

Within its frozen treat portfolio, the cookie brand offers both Oreo cream- and mint-flavored frozen dairy dessert with cookie pieces. The mint-flavored items are new additions for the brand, recently launching in March.

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Dreyer's KitKat Frozen Dairy Desserts

In addition to appearing in the candy aisle, KitKat has a presence in the supermarket's freezers. The candy brand takes on the form of frozen dairy dessert mini bars and cones, with the cones available in two options: wafer with fudge and chocolate wafer.
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That being said, not all of KitKat's frosty treats fall into the frozen dairy dessert category. There's also KitKat Light Ice Cream. The word "light" indicates that the ice cream contains at least 50% less total fat or 33% fewer calories than the average of leading brands, according to the International Dairy Foods Association.

Crunch Frozen Dairy Dessert Bars

KitKat isn't the only candy brand with frozen dairy dessert offerings. As depicted on the product's box, this item is described as "vanilla bars with Crunch coating." The word "ice cream" is strategically not placed next to the word "vanilla," while "frozen dairy dessert" is clearly printed at the bottom of the package.

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Breyers Frozen Dairy Desserts

While Breyers still sells ice cream, the brand added frozen dairy desserts to its product lineup around a decade ago. "People really drove that decision," Nick Soukas, the former brand-building director for Unilever's ice cream in the U.S., told The New York Times in 2013. "People are telling us, 'We want a smoother texture.'"

Breyers notes on its website that it's "able to deliver" this smoother texture with its frozen dairy dessert products. These come in multiple flavors ranging from simple varieties like Extra Creamy Chocolate and Extra Creamy Vanilla to options like Cookies & Cream, Double Chocolate Brownie Batter, and Butter Pecan.

Turkey Hill Frozen Dairy Desserts

Manufacturer Turkey Hill offers a variety of frozen dairy desserts, such as its Double Dunker flavor. The brand describes this product as "Mocha with cookie dough swirled with crumbles of chocolate sandwich cookies." Again, the dessert's flavor stands on its own, with "ice cream" nowhere on the package. However, Turkey Hill doesn't only offer frozen dairy desserts. The brand also sells premium, all-natural, light, fat-free, and no sugar-added ice cream.

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Friendly's Frozen Dairy Desserts

Just because Friendly's is known for its ice cream doesn't mean there aren't any lookalikes on its flavor roster. Among the plethora of products listed on the brand's website are several frozen dairy desserts, such as its Original Denali Moose Tracks. The flavor, which consists of a vanilla frozen dairy dessert base, peanut butter cups, and fudge, is described as a "wonderfully creamy frozen dessert" with a "delicious vanilla ice cream taste." 

Reese's Frozen Dairy Desserts

Last year, Reese's unveiled seven new frozen treats. Two of these are made with "light ice cream," which, as previously mentioned, has less fat and fewer calories than regular ice cream.

The other five desserts feature a base of either chocolate or peanut butter frozen dairy dessert. These items include Reese's Chocolate Peanut Butter Frozen Dairy Dessert, Reese's Peanut Butter Frozen Dairy Dessert Sandwiches, Reese's Peanut Butter Frozen Dairy Dessert Bars, Reese's Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cones, and Reese's Peanut Butter Frozen Dessert Cups.

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Good Humor Bars

Good Humor's dessert-inspired bars may be ice cream truck mainstays, but they're technically not ice cream by the FDA's standards. Take the Strawberry Shortcake bar, for example. According to the item's product details, this bar combines "creamy vanilla flavored frozen dessert" with a "luscious strawberry core" and is then coated in the brand's signature strawberry shortcake coating. Similarly, Good Humor's Chocolate Éclair bar is made with "creamy vanilla flavored frozen dessert," in addition to a "luscious Chocolate Éclair core" and the brand's signature cake coating.

While the product descriptions could have you fooled, these bars are still not directly being called "ice cream." The same goes for Good Humor's Cookies & Creme Bar.

Certain Klondike Bars

Although Klondike's original vanilla ice cream bars are, in fact, made with ice cream—"light ice cream," to be exact—not all of the brand's products can say the same. For instance, Klondike gets creative by describing its mint chocolate chip bars as a "fresh mint goodness, mixed with decadent chocolate chips, and enrobed in a dark-chocolatey coating." With a description like that, it's easy to forget that the item doesn't qualify as ice cream. Additionally, Klondike offers other frozen dairy desserts in the bar, sandwich, and cone categories.

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Blue Bunny Frozen Dairy Desserts

 

From ice cream sandwiches to scoopables, Blue Bunny offers a wide variety of frozen dairy desserts. Take a look at its sandwiches, and you'll notice that Blue Bunny avoids outwardly calling these treats "frozen dessert sandwiches" and simplifies the label even further. The word "sandwiches" is in a larger, more conspicuous font, while "frozen dairy dessert" in small-sized text. The product details for the brand's vanilla-flavored sandwiches are also described as "ice creamy"—as opposed to ice cream.

Blue Ribbon Classics Frozen Dairy Desserts

Like Blue Bunny, Blue Ribbon Classics also uses the term "ice creamy" in the product descriptions for its frozen dairy desserts, which range from scoopable tubs to handheld treats. The brand highlights this descriptor on its website, too, writing on multiple product pages, "We make memories to last a lifetime. One delicious, ice creamy bite at a time."

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Nestlé Drumsticks

Despite being commonly regarded as a novelty ice cream cone, this popular handheld treat doesn't meet the criteria to be labeled as ice cream. Sure, the wording comes very close. Nestlé's Vanilla Sundae Cones are described as starting with "sweet creamy vanilla." Creamy vanilla? Yes. But is it ice cream? Not quite. 

This story has been updated to include additional information, copy edits, and fact-checking.