We All Scream for Ice Cream!!
By: Nicole Lam (Project Lead), Kuan-Ting (Andrew) Chen, Kayla Teng, Paige Lee, Joshua Li
INTRODUCTION
We’ve all seen the cliche hundreds of times by now. Mom has to leave, so Grandpa comes to visit. “No sweets,” Mom says, but as soon as she walks out the door, Grandpa turns around and winks. Fast forward a few minutes and the children are enjoying the creamy, sugary goodness of ice cream. Take a walk to any local grocery store, and you’ll be sure to find an entire aisle dedicated to the dairy dessert, but have you ever wondered which of the plethora of flavors is most popular? What about brands? And what is it about each brand that turns people into diehard fans or abhorrent antagonists? Either way, one thing is for sure, ice cream has come a long way since its beginnings. In fact, Thomas Jefferson had his very own personal ice cream recipe. But you don’t have to be a Founding Father to enjoy ice cream, there are many ways to enjoy it today.
DATASET OVERVIEW
We found a dataset on Kaggle that had thousands of reviews across brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers, Talenti, and Häagen-Dazs. Each brand of ice cream had hundreds of reviews and was divided into different categories such as brand and flavor. Each brand also had a rating count, meaning that we knew how many people rated each product and how many stars each product received. For many of the products, there were lots of written reviews as well, ranging from “if this flavor is retired, my lifespan might shorten” to “the worst thing to ever be in my mouth”. We’re not going to reveal which brands these reviews were referring to for obvious reasons, but the point is, that there is a lot of data to be looked at here. After cleaning the data to make it a bit more digestible, we indexed the data to make some spectacular graphs that you’ll see in the rest of this article. You’ll be seeing some graphs about the most popular flavors, the brands with the most and highest ratings, and reviews about individual products. From all this data, maybe you’ll find something new to try out! Let’s take a look!
BEN & JERRY’S, BREYERS, HÄAGEN-DAZS, TALENTI
Before we started looking at popular ice cream flavors from each brand, we wanted to see how consumers rated the four ice cream brands to get a general understanding of which brands gave consumers a sweet tooth and which brands missed the mark.
First, we produced a stacked bar plot with color-coded brands and displayed the range of ratings by brand and their number of flavors from 1.0 to 5.0, with 1.0 being the lowest and 5.0 being the highest. The majority of flavors from Talenti and Häagen-Dazs were clustered between 4.2 to 5.0. On the other hand, Breyers and Ben & Jerry’s had a wider spread of ratings for their ice cream compared to Talenti and Häagen-Dazs, ranging from 1.2 to 5.0. While Breyers and Ben & Jerry’s have a decent number of flavors in the 4.0 to 5.0 ratings, it is concerning that there is a considerable number of flavors that were given either average or even low ratings. This is especially evident in Breyers because we see that ratings 1.2 to 3.0 are mostly filled with green bars, showing that consumers tended to give the lowest ratings to Breyers’ ice cream flavors. Talenti and Häagen-Dazs did not have many flavors rated between 1.0 to 4.0, indicating that consumers thought highly of their flavors. But, this may have occurred due to not having enough flavors to examine. Ben and Jerry’s and Breyers potentially had more flavors that consumers could rate highly or lowly compared to Talenti and Häagen-Dazs, resulting in Ben and Jerry’s and Breyers having a greater range of ratings. Nonetheless, Talenti and Häagen-Dazs reigned supreme across the four brands, Ben & Jerry’s made it to third due to their more average ratings, and Breyers came in last.
WHAT IS THE MOST POPULAR FLAVOR ACROSS THE BRANDS?
After examining the general consumer ratings from the four brands, we wanted to find the most popular ice cream flavors that the four brands were producing to see what common flavors appealed to consumers the most before diving into a brand’s specific ice cream flavors. We determined the most popular ice cream flavors by seeing what were the most prevalent ingredients in terms of flavor, excluding basic ingredients like milk and sugar.
Out of 241 ice cream flavors across Talenti, Häagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s, and Breyers, we found that the most popular ice cream flavors among all four brands included chocolate, vanilla, peanut, caramel, coffee, and strawberry as depicted in our pie chart above. However, chocolate and vanilla dominated the other flavors, making up approximately 80% of the ice cream flavors in the dataset. Chocolate made it to the top of the list, making up about 45% of the ice cream flavors, while vanilla took the number two spot making up about 35%. Based on our own experiences, chocolate and vanilla tend to be the most popular flavors offered at restaurants, school celebrations, and other major settings, so it was no surprise that they came out on top. Since chocolate and vanilla were the two most popular ice cream flavors, we decided to focus our analysis on the most popular ice cream flavors that contained chocolate and vanilla across the four brands.
CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
Chocolate and vanilla ice cream are the most iconic flavors today. But, sometimes, they can get a little boring. Chocolate and vanilla are so versatile and easy to combine with other flavors, such as fruit, peanut butter, and products like milkshakes, ice cream sandwiches. It is no secret why ice cream brands are continuously coming out with new flavors every year involving these two flavors. Since chocolate and vanilla are very established flavors, consumers are more likely to try slightly “fancier” versions of their favorite chocolate and vanilla flavors instead of a flavor that is very exotic. It poses less of a risk to the ice cream brands whether or not consumers will like their new chocolate or vanilla products. This way, these brands can focus more on attracting more consumers with their new releases and showing why their versions of chocolate and vanilla ice cream are the best.
We gathered all of the ice cream flavors containing chocolate or vanilla from the four brands and created horizontal bar plots with their rating and rating count (number of reviews). We can see delicious flavors, such as Cookies and Creme Cheesecake Core from Ben & Jerry’s and Bourbon Vanilla Bean Truffle Ice Cream from Häagen-Dazs. Our mouths are already watering by hearing these ice cream flavors, but let’s see what consumers thought of them!
Chocolate
By looking at the rating of chocolate ice cream by brand, we can see that all of the brands have a plethora of ratings, with some chocolate ice cream having a rating of 5 while others having close to 1. Ben & Jerry’s tops the ratings for chocolate ice cream with 13 ice cream flavors having the rating of 4.5 and above. Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Split even received 5 stars! Häagen-Dazs comes next with 10 flavors that have a rating of 4.5 and above, and Breyers had 4 chocolate flavors that had the same ratings. Although Talenti dominated the overall ratings across the four brands, sadly, they only had 3 chocolate ice cream flavors that made it past 4.5. Clearly, Ben & Jerry’s chocolate ice cream flavors were a hit with consumers, but Talenti was a miss despite having one of the highest overall brand ratings.
For the rating count of chocolate ice cream, we found that Ben & Jerry’s received more reviews compared to the other three brands. Ben and Jerry’s The Tonight Dough ® received more than 600 reviews from consumers and had over a 4.5 rating! Contrastingly, while Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Split ice cream received a rating of 5, it only received seven consumer reviews. The lowest rated chocolate ice cream from the four brands, Breyers’ Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, obtained a 1.2 rating and received 89 consumer reviews, which is 12 times more reviews than what Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Split collected.
Vanilla
Ben & Jerry’s once again dominated the ratings of vanilla ice cream out of the four brands, with 4 vanilla ice cream flavors raking in ratings of 4.5 and above. Talenti performed better in the vanilla category with its Organic Oak-Aged Vanilla Gelato receiving a rating above 4.5 despite only having 2 vanilla ice cream flavors. Breyers also fared fairly well, having a rating of 4.0 and above for 7 out of 8 vanilla flavors. However, consumers liked Häagen-Dazs’ Vanilla Ice Cream the least, giving it only a rating of 3.
For the rating count of vanilla ice cream, Breyers received the most ratings out of the four brands for its vanilla ice cream flavors. Breyers’ Natural Vanilla Ice Cream received more than 500 reviews from consumers and a rating of 4.1, which is not too bad for so many reviews. In the above ratings plot, we saw that Talenti’s Organic Oak-Aged Vanilla Gelato had a rating above 4.5, but the rating count is one of the lowest compared to all of the vanilla ice cream flavors. On the other hand, the lowest-rated vanilla ice cream, Häagen-Dazs’ Vanilla Ice Cream, acquired a rating of 3.0 but received more than 200 consumer reviews.
Chocolate ice cream seems to be a favorite among consumers because the four brands created a total of 74 chocolate ice cream flavors, with more than 10 flavors receiving ratings above 4.5 and thousands of rating counts across the four brands. Vanilla ice cream only had seven ratings that were above 4.5 and only 21 flavors produced, which shows that consumers prefer chocolate more than vanilla ice cream flavors. Ben & Jerry’s prevailed in both chocolate and vanilla ice cream categories, while Talenti, Häagen-Dazs, and Breyers trailed behind.
What’s the Favorite Brand?
An Interesting Question
We created a bar plot, showing the average ratings based on different ice cream flavors by brand. Breyers ratings seem just a bit lower than the other three brands. But if you take a closer look, B&J’s, Häagen-Dazs, and Talenti, all push past the 4 star mark, but the average Breyers rating doesn’t even make it to 4 stars. And when you consider how the other brands all have similar ratings at about 4.5 stars, the low score of Breyers seems even more out of place.
And when you look at the reviews for the two most popular flavors of ice cream that Breyers makes, the results aren’t the best either. Again, all the other brands are well over 4 stars, while Breyers Chocolate misses the mark, and Breyers Vanilla can’t even break 3.5. Maybe people just don’t like Breyers, or Breyers is somehow sabotaging itself.
One possible explanation could be branding and consumer perception. Everyone knows that Häagen-Dazs is an elegant and fancy brand of ice cream. The type that wears a three-piece suit and a Rolex, while Ben & Jerry is fun and has funny cows and celebrities on their tubs. Talenti makes gelato, and Breyers… looks generic? Out of all the brands, Breyers has probably the most simple-looking ice cream tub. It’s black with the logo and a scoop of ice cream. It doesn’t look too different from your average store brand ice cream. Add in that the price is usually much lower than the three other brands of ice cream, and Breyers just doesn’t look that appetizing.
And if public perception is at least part of the issue, then it can’t get worse than a lawsuit (Steve Nunez v. Unilever United States, Inc.). Breyers Vanilla very boldly claims “Natural Vanilla” on the packaging, yet just last year in 2020, those who sued said that they have been tricked and that there is no natural vanilla extract, but rather artificial vanilla flavoring. To add to the ambiguity, the ingredients list on the packaging only mentions “natural flavoring”, not vanilla is mentioned at all. Look at the graphic below that includes all of the ingredients for each brand’s recipe for vanilla ice cream. There really is no vanilla extract, just flavoring.
Is the natural flavoring just another way of saying vanilla or is it something else? Either way, many consumers were not happy, which might lead to an overall lower perception of Breyers. And unlike Breyers, all the other brands of ice cream do include vanilla extract in their recipes.
The one right below is Ben & Jerry’s ingredient list, and they do have vanilla extract.
And so does Talenti. Just look at the first line.
And even Häagen-Dazs. In the second to bottom line.
So there’s lots of reasons why Breyers may not be the ice cream king. Maybe people want actual vanilla, or the packaging influences their taste buds. But, there is something to consider here.
SO MANY FLAVORS TO CHOOSE FROM
In the overall brand ratings, Talenti and Häagen-Dazs were more successful than Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers, yet Ben & Jerry’s were dominant in the two most popular ice cream flavors: chocolate and vanilla. Why did that happen?
Chocolate and vanilla are not the only ice cream flavors in the market right now, so consumers could leave more highly rated reviews for other ice cream flavors as well. Going back to the rating and rating counts, we created a scatter plot for all of the ice cream flavors. We wanted to examine the relationship between ratings and rating count to see if we could find a correlation between the two variables for all four brands.
Breyers did not have many reviews like the other brands did, but Ben & Jerry’s had hundreds of reviews, especially positive ones. Talenti and Häagen-Dazs, did not have as many customer reviews compared to Ben and Jerry’s, but still more than Breyers. In addition, we do see that every brand had 10+ ice cream flavors with a rating above 4.0 even with a low number of reviews.
We also constructed a bar plot with the 20 most reviewed flavors across four brands and plotted them based on their ratings and brand.
Ben & Jerry’s had 10 of the most reviewed ice cream flavors, including half of the flavors making it into the top 10 highest ratings. Many of their flavors making the list are not chocolate or vanilla, such as Strawberry Cheesecake and Out of this Swirled™. Talenti only had four of the most reviewed ice cream flavors, while Breyers and Häagen-Dazs each had three. We know that Ben & Jerry’s had flavors with almost 1000 reviews and rated above 4.5 from the scatter plot. However, Häagen-Dazs’ Dulce de Leche Ice Cream was the highest rated ice cream flavor from this plot, yet Häagen-Dazs never broke through 250 consumer reviews for Dulce de Leche. Similarly, Breyers and Talenti do not have an ice cream flavor that has received 500 reviews, yet their ice cream flavors are rated 4.0 and above. It is not really fair to compare the Dulce de Leche from Häagen-Dazs that received a 4.8 rating from 200+ reviews with flavors like Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough that acquired a 4.6 rating from 900+ reviews. A larger sample size of consumers would be necessary to have a more accurate rating for the Dulce de Leche Ice Cream. However, it would be difficult to get that many consumers to try the Dulce de Leche ice cream, along with every other ice cream flavor to find the most popular among consumers. In a perfect world, all ice cream flavors would have 1000 reviews and could be solely compared with each other. But, there are too many ice cream flavors and not enough consumers eating and writing reviews to do so. It would be impossible to objectively compare ice cream flavors with that amount of accuracy and consistency. Across these four brands, we can see that the number of reviews do not correlate with how popular an ice cream flavor is. Two ice cream flavors can receive five consumer reviews, but one can have a 4.8 rating and the other receiving a 1.2. Five reviews is definitely not enough to give a credible rating. Overall, it would be impossible to determine what is the most and least popular ice cream flavor in the market today.
CONCLUSION
So what does this mean for consumers like us? Can we trust customer ratings at all for our ice cream consumption? Ben & Jerry’s tend to have high ratings (above 4.5) paired with high number of consumer reviews, so we can see Ben & Jerry’s is pretty successful in creating good ice cream and have fans who love it so much to leave a review. Maybe, Breyers is also well-liked, but their fans do not leave reviews as often as Ben & Jerry’s fans. Maybe, consumers who have average or poor opinions about Häagen-Dazs or Talenti do not bother to leave reviews, resulting in inflated ratings. There are many possibilities for what could result in these mixed ratings that can be investigated more.
After all, the only ice cream flavor and brand that matters is the one you like the most. Although chocolate and vanilla ice cream are considered the “most popular” flavors and Ben & Jerry’s is considered the “most popular” brand among the general public, that should not stop you from eating your favorite ice cream. If you like eating Breyers Cookies & Cream, eat that bowl of ice cream! If you prefer Häagen-Dazs Green Tea Ice Cream, eat that ice cream out of the carton! Don’t let ratings and popularity get in the way of your enjoyment of ice cream!
I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM!!
