Limited Edition Foods

I am in Chicago for the holidays. I hoped that going to a grocery store in a different area might reveal some limited edition food items I had not yet seen this season. In fact, I did find four limited edition Lucerne yogurt flavors at Dominick’s, but I was surprised that even here they did not have much seasonal stuff that I am used to seeing. The main thing is I still have not seen any holiday sugar cookie dough anywhere. Dominick’s had something close, but it was just one of those new tubs of cookie dough with holiday images on the lid sticker. Inside it is just regular sugar cookie dough. How boring!!!

Anyways, the four Limited Edition Lucerne yogurt flavors are pretty interesting. Two of the flavors are Cranberry Orange and Pumpkin, which is the same flavors I found in Lucerne cream cheese back in early November. These two flavors are part of the Low Fat line of Lucerne yogurts (the ones in the red packaging). These flavors do seem like they should be off the shelf by now, but the expiration date was the same as the other flavors and about as far in the future as you normally see.

The other two flavors are Caramel Apple and Gingerbread. They are part of the Light line of Lucerne Yogurts (the ones in the blue packaging). I was kind of hoping they made these in the cream cheese as well like they apparently did with the first two flavors I mentioned. In particular I think Gingerbread cream cheese would be at least interesting to try out. Perhaps they did make them, but I certainly did not see them in the store.

Stonyfield Farm plans to release three limited edition yogurt flavors in 2009. The first one is expected to be in stores in January. This flavor is Apple Pie, which does not sound good to me because the only yogurt flavor I have ever tried and hated had apple in it. This flavor is expected to remain in stores until early spring.

The other two flavors have not been announced, yet. They plan to release the second limited edition flavor of 2009 as a spring/summer seasonal flavor. The third limited edition will be released for the fall and winter season of 2009 and again can be expected to be seasonal, although since they are already doing Apple Pie in January they already have me thinking their idea of seasonal does not match mine. It you ask me, the Apple Pie is being released right after the appropriate time for an apple/harvest flavor.

It seems Limited Edition Yogurt is a big thing in the UK lately or at least it seems to be what I keep running across in my searches of new limited edition foods being released. Today I found out about Yoplait releases Limited Edition High School Musical 3 packaging for their Frubes line of yogurt. They are set to be released mid-September 2008 to help promote the new High School Musical 3 movies set to hit movie theaters in the UK on October 22, 2008.

Frubes is tube yogurt and the equivalent to Go-Gurt in the USA. The High School Musical 3 packaging will have character cut outs, bookmarks, and games. Also, for the first time the Limited Edition Frubes will feature collectible character designs on the tubes, which is something Go-Gurt has done in the USA such as for Scooby Doo. There will be a total of 24 to collect, but honestly does anyone actually clean and collect these or let their kids do so?

Additionally they have some special High School Musical 3 features on their website. This includes games, downloads, a calendar, and a chance to win prizes. If I am not mistaken the prizes will be awarded based on performance in the online games, or at least that appears to be how they are awarding their current prizes.

I wonder if they will be doing anything similar in the US, as I know a lot of tweens here are also quite obsessed with the whole High School Musical thing and it would be a nice healthy thing to put out a limited edition thing for to encourage then to eat healthier.

The other week I posted about a Limited Edition flavor of Muller UK Fruit Corner yogurt. The other day I read about them also releasing a limited edition flavor of Mullerlight yogurt. This limited edition flavor is Lemon and Passionfruit. It is the third new flavor of Mullerlight yogurt released this year with the other two being Wild Blueberry and Peach. However, Lemon and Passionfruit is the first limited edition flavor in this line of Muller yogurt.

This may seem like a summer flavor and odd to be released in September, but they did that on purpose. It is supposed to bring a bit of summer to the winter months while at the same time being part of a refreshing new yogurt flavor to renew interest in eating yogurt.

Next month (September 2008) Muller UK is releasing the first in a series of limited edition Fruit Corner yogurt (or yoghurt if you are British) flavor. This is part of their Mix It Your Way campaign they started this month. The Fruit Corner line of yogurt products are single serve containers that come with plain yogurt and fruit mix-ins. There are 5 regular flavors like raspberry and blueberry. The first limited edition flavor will be Black Cherry and Dark Chocolate. This will be the first Fruit Corner flavor that includes chocolate.