| Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, The University of Reading
Food Labelling in the UK - A supporting material page |
The following terms have been given specifications by the Ice Cream Alliance (ICA) in the UK. Whilst not legally binding, they do establish a basis for a judgement as to what might be considered 'misleading'.
For a copy of the document produced by the ICA, see The Ice Cream Compositional Requirements laid down by the Ice Cream Alliance.
| Term | Compositional requirement (as proposed by the ICA) |
| Ice cream | This shall not be applied to a food other than a frozen product containing a minimum of 5% fat and not less than 2.5% milk protein, not necessarily in natural proportions. It is made by subjecting an emulsion of fat, milk solids and sugar (including any sweetener permitted in ice cream by the Miscellaneous Food Additives and the Sweeteners in Food Regulations 2007) (see note below), to a heat treatment and subsequent freezing and may include the addition of other food substances. Note: The UK Regulations mentioned in this requirement have been replaced by additive controls adopted by the EU in 2008. The reference here should be taken to refer to EU Regulation 1333/2008. |
| Dairy ice cream | This shall be applied to a food which complies with the description “ice cream” to a food where the fat content is a minimum of 5% and consists exclusively of milk fat and contains no other fats other than milk fat. It may include other ingredients which are not based on dairy fat, that are used as an ingredient of the ice cream such as egg, flavouring, emulsifier or stabiliser. |
| Milk ice | Product which contains at least 2.5% dairy fat and a minimum of 6% milk solids not fat, excluding any other fat or protein from a non-dairy source. |
Ice lolly or Water ice |
For products made from mainly water and sugar but may include flavour, flavouring or colours. |
| Fruit ice lolly or Fruit ice | Is reserved for products made from mainly fruit juice or puree, water and sugar but may include flavour, flavouring or colours and have minimum fruit content for non-citrus fruits of at least 15% and for citrus fruits of 10%. |
| Sorbet | Is reserved for a product complying with the basic definition and contains a maximum added fat content of 1%. The product must contain when reference is made to fruit(s) or vegetable(s) in words, definitions, trade-marks, brand name, pictorial matter or symbols, the fruit(s) or vegetable(s) content must be at least 20%. The fruit(s) content may however be reduced respectively to 15% for those fruits which are of a citrus variety, such as lemon, orange, mandarine, tangerine, grapefruit, etc or other acidic fruit which have a thick consistency such as pineapple, banana, corossol, cherimoya, guanabana, guava, kiwi, lychee, mango, passion fruit, etc. The minimum content is reduced to 7% for nuts and nut preparations. |
For the main index page for this site, go to Food Labelling in the UK: A Guide to the Legal Requirements