(Memphis) It’s a sweet day when Terran Haughberg’s mom takes him to Yolo.
His favorite part is pulling the levers and picking out his favorite toppings.
“He gets to make the choice about what he wants and I don’t feel so bad about what’s in it,” Gretta Haubgerg said.
These self-serve frozen yogurt stores are sprinkled across the country.
Stores grew from 833 in 2005 to more than 1,200 this year. That’s a 47 percent increase.
But the yogurt craze could be on the verge of a meltdown.
“It’s pretty saturated right now,” Yolo general manager Corey Nelson said.
Nelson said his three stores are strong, but others struggled.
”We’ve closed two stores in the last year,” he said. “The business just wasn’t there with the competition in the same area with better locations.”
He says the fro-yo boom two years ago served up a lot of competition, especially in East Memphis.
“There’s just so many locations up and down Poplar in East Memphis that everybody has found what they think is the spot in East Memphis they all just happened to be right on top of each other and not everybody is going to be able to hold on.”
So the lucky ones are scooping up the profits.
The frozen yogurt market grew from $279 million in 2011 to $486 million in 2013.
“I think it has hit its peak and its kind of plateaued, but I think it will sustain for awhile,” he said.
Nutritionists say what will sustain the demand is that yogurt is a healthier alternative.
“They are low in calories compared to ice cream,” dietician Dana Hunnes said. “They have a lot less fat in them and if you’re lucky, certain purveyors do have probiotics, which can be healthy for your digestive system and immune system as well.”
Just watch how much you pour.
One cup can hold as much as four servings.
After all, most of us don’t have the metabolism of a 5-year-old.
