Editor's note: This article appeared in the July 30, 2008, edition of Quirk's e-newsletter.

Ice cream may rule dessert freezers, but as the cold-treat market grows in coming years, ice cream is expected to stay flat. Instead, novelties (sandwiches, bars and the like) and yogurt are expected to see growth, according to Chicago research company Mintel. Still, Mintel finds the other freezer sweets have some catching up to do. Ice cream accounted for nearly 60 percent of sales of ice cream, frozen novelties, sherbet and frozen yogurt combined last year. Put another way, 89 percent of U.S. consumers ate ice cream in the past year, while only 59 percent ate novelty products. The proliferation of yogurt outlets notwithstanding, only 37 percent and 34 percent of consumers ate sherbet or frozen yogurt, respectively.
 
However, since 2005, supermarket sales of ice cream have slid 2.1 percent, while sales of frozen novelties, sherbet and frozen yogurt have increased 2.7 percent, 7.5 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively. Frozen novelties grew 7.2 percent from 2002 to 2007. While Mintel forecasts the market will grow 15 percent from 2008 to 2012, it expects ice cream sales will decline. The company forecasts that by 2012, U.S. retail ice cream sales will decline to $4.02 billion from $4.09 billion last year, while frozen novelties will grow to around $2.75 billion from $2.56 billion last year. Sales of sherbet and frozen yogurt will grow from around $200 million last year to $206 million, and from $177 million to $200 million, respectively.