After ice cream, premium juice and smoothie boutiques comes another concept that brings DIY food stations to consumers: the yogurt bar.
This week, Dannon, the US subsidiary of French dairy giant Danone in Paris, opened a gourmet yogurt bar in New York where customers can build their own yogurt parfaits, smoothies and juices.
In addition to fresh yogurt, patrons at The Yogurt Culture Company can also make theirs frozen, choosing from a base like traditional, Greek, whole or skim yogurt.
Flavors like chocolate, dulce de leche, vanilla, blueberry, caramelized pineapple, mango and peach are then hand-churned into the mix and topped with either fresh fruit, granola or roasted nuts.
Milk for the traditional yogurt is sourced from the Hudson Valley's Battenkill Valley Creamery, a 100-year-old, family-owned dairy farm in Salem, New York, and is hormone-free.
Meanwhile, the leading Greek yogurt brand in the US, Chobani, also has plans to open a store and a "Mediterranean" yogurt bar next month, reports The New York Times blog Diner's Journal.
The SoHo yogurt store will focus on eastern Mediterranean flavors like figs, honey, pistachios and pineapple. Unlike The Yogurt Culture Company, the Chobani store will not sell frozen yogurt.
