30/03/2009 (GuelphMercury) - It's not quite ice cream weather yet, at least for the customers. But it certainly is for the processors and manufacturers. They consider April the optimal month for launching new ice cream products. It gives marketing campaigns time to dig in and generate buzz before the hot weather arrives and people start making choices.

Healthwise, some choices are brutal. They're either really high in fat, or really, really, really high in fat, thanks in part to palm oil. It's a saturated fat, found in some ice cream and, especially, frozen desserts, standing in for milk.

The world is awash in palm oil. It became a cheap alternative when consumers started demanding no trans fats in their food. But instead of trans fats, consumers got high fat -- refined, bleached, deodorized palm oil. That's its official name. In the trade, it's popularly known by its acronym RBDPO. Yuck.

Canada's dairy industry is pushing back with the 100 per cent Canadian Milk campaign. It wants to bring the palm oil tsunami onto the radar screens of Canadians, and make imported palm oil a food security issue, as well as a matter of health. The sector got a boost last summer when 90 per cent of 1,500 respondents in a Dairy Farmers of Ontario-sponsored poll said it was important that their ice cream be made with real milk, not with the likes of palm oil.

Some Canadian companies have avoided palm oil. For example, Chapman's, of Markdale, one of rural Ontario's best success stories, boasts about bearing the 100 per cent Canadian Milk designation. The company thinks Canadians will chose products made with domestic milk over imported palm oil, if given the chance -- assuming similar quality and product selection.

Here's an emerging success story that illustrates that same line of thinking.

Back on a hot summer evening in 2005, health enthusiasts Chris Delaney and Amanda House of Burlington were craving a cool, low-fat protein-fortified treat. On a hunch, in their kitchen, they mixed (and mixed, and mixed) some chocolate protein powder with vanilla frozen yogurt.

When they finally got the consistency they wanted and tasted it, they had the kind of eureka moment inventors dream of. To them, yogurt and protein together was YoPRO. Before long they were glued to their computer, researching how to develop and launch a food product.

Their quest led them to the Guelph Food Technology Centre. They worked with the centre for over a year and a half, where they engaged in a six-month feasibility study involving its staff and University of Guelph ice cream processing experts. Through this team effort, they figured out a commercial-scale recipe for a 100-per-cent natural protein-fortified product.

A manufacturer in Stoney Creek was brought on to develop their international patent-pending line, and they were on their way.

Last year, YoPRO was picked up by the Loblaw's chain. Starting this spring, it will be offered in all of their stores in Ontario and Quebec.

Earlier this year, it won a Canadian LIVERight Award for "best kid-friendly product." And now, with the assistance of BioEnterprise Corporation in Guelph, YoPRO is entering next month's ice cream season with a new caramel-ribboned and chocolate frozen yogurt bars -- with 8 grams of protein and a scant 1.5 grams of fat. Plans call for expansion into eastern and western Canada next year, followed by entry into the U.S. in 2011, again with BioEnterprise's help.

John Wilkinson, Ontario's minister of research and innovation, says innovation "is all about talented people with good ideas that have the potential to seize global market opportunities."

Check the frozen food aisle. Indeed, innovative products are starting to fill the freezers.

Owen Roberts teaches agricultural communications at the University of Guelph. Urban Cowboy appears Mondays in the Guelph Mercury.