By OLIVIA IANNONE
Staff Writer
Picture yourself in a colorfully tiled store. The wall across from you is lined with a few dozen metal levers and signs saying “red velvet,” “mango” and “tart”. Nearby is a dispenser of way-too-big logo-adorned cups. A flat, shiny digital scale takes up the space in front of the register. The décor can best be described as young, plastic, bubbly and bright.
Where are you? In a self-serve frozen yogurt shop, of course. Over the past few years, they have been popping up like mushrooms. According to IBISworld, this industry’s revenue has increased by 5.9% in the past five years, despite the economic downturn, mainly because the shops are easy to open and happen to be trendy.
Here’s a harder question: which frozen yogurt shop are you in? I gave you lots of clues. You probably think you’re at Yo Mon or Kravings. But you’re not. I specifically described Pink Berry. Wait, that is the one in the Shoprite plaza, right? Or is that Let’s Yo? More importantly, is there a difference?
The longer the frozen yogurt craze goes on, the more I’m convinced that there’s actually no difference whatsoever. At first, I had a favorite location, but I don’t remember which one that was anymore. They all have the same cups, same scale, same tasteless neon color scheme. The yogurts are not made by the store, either, but are delivered in bulk from large vendors, as I personally discovered when I worked for Frozen Peaks for a few weeks. Essentially, they are selling the exact same product, because you can’t make yogurt from scratch in a small store.
According to Marketplace, their success stems from the fact that they are cheap to open and require few skills to maintain. But perhaps because the materials and ingredients come from the same few companies, and because the owners know they can make quick money without giving their shops any character, every location has the same personality. With the amount of these identical businesses that have popped up recently, it seems impossible that there can be enough of a market for all of them.
Right now, the frozen yogurt industry is riding a disproportionate wave of popularity, and all waves die down. Even the “modern” styling of the stores seems temporary, like the businesses haven’t even thought five years ahead to when all their furnishings will become obsolete and creepy-looking. In an ice-cream parlor, you could easily be in 1980 or 2030. Yogurt shops are not built to be timeless.
Frozen yogurt is good, but it’s not good enough to last in its current setup. It’s not any better that ice cream, and if ice cream hasn’t been able to flourish with shops practically on every corner – and unoriginal, identical shops to boot – then I doubt that “froyo” can. In a couple years, when it finally comes down to competition, only a few will survive. But it’s hard to predict which ones will have an edge when they’re all exactly the same.