Melorin

A proposed name for Russian ice cream that contains more than 12 percent vegetable fat.

Milk producers in Russia are calling for new regulations that would prevent the majority of Russian ice cream makers from describing their products as ice cream, Maria Antonova reported for The Moscow Times:

A State Duma committee considered a request from milk producers on Thursday to force makers of ice cream consisting of more than 12 percent vegetable oil to rename their product “melorin” instead of “morozhenoye,” the Russian word for “ice cream.”

About 70 percent of Russian ice cream would fail to meet the purposed standards. The fact that “morozhenoye,” unlike “ice cream,” literally means “frozen” and gives no indication of its ingredients, does not seem to deter the milk producers.

The head of the Russian Union of Milk Producers, Andrei Danilenko, reportedly said, “the consumer should know whether he is buying real ice cream or a product made of palm oils that has no milk.”

Antonova suggested that the name melorin was derived from mellorine – an imitation ice cream made with vegetable fats – and she noted:

Ice cream makers fumed at the proposed name change, saying the label “melorin” would scare consumers because it provokes an association with “melamine,” the chemical in a recent milk contamination scandal in China.

“Can you imagine how much money ice cream makers will need to spend to prove that melorin is ice cream and not poison?” Russian Ice Cream Union head Valery Elkhov said.

(In 2000, European Union ministers ended a 27-year-long trade dispute when they ruled that chocolate containing up to 5 percent vegetable fat could still be called chocolate. Belgium, France, Italy and others had long arguedthat chocolate which did not contain pure cocoa butter should be sold under an alternative name, such as “vegelate,” “surrogate chocolate,” or “household milk chocolate.”)