During a recent visit to the research and development laboratory at Dairy Queen’s international headquarters, a row of soft-serve ice cream machines stood disconcertingly silent. The waffle irons and the commercial-grade mixers were unplugged, and no syrups or candies were being tested in the refractometer, the colorometer, or the texturometer. A lone bottle of coffee flavoring—and the red DQ logos embroidered on the lab coats of the men and women who moved through the premises— provided the only hints that the pristine stainless steel counters had seen the birth of such concoctions as the Brownie Earthquake Sundae and the Yule Flip Peppermint Chip Blizzard.
While the Dairy Queens on Lake Street and Snelling Avenue may shutter their windows for the winter months, International Dairy Queen does not sleep. These days, most Dairy Queen locations operate year-round, and the company’s South Minneapolis base is home to an R&D operation that, looking well beyond the coming summer, is currently developing menu items slated for rollout in 2010.
International Dairy Queen’s world headquarters are tucked away in a nondescript beige edifice off Highway 100. Upon my arrival, I was treated to a Dilly Bar before being escorted to the office of R&D director Bill Barrier. Amid bookshelves where The Six Sigma Way and The Leader’s Voice shared space with Modern Food Microbiology and The Handbook of Fruits and Fruit Processing, Barrier and his colleagues, Mary Joyce, director of product innovation, explained DQ’s perpetual quest for new menu items.
A search for the new might seem a misplaced priority for a company that for decades built its brand on such traditional fare as ice cream cones and hot dogs, but Barrier and his staff emphasized the need to be mindful of consumers’ shifting tastes. “We’ll always have the basic cone on our menu,” marketing specialist Aric Nissen told me later, “but tastes change. Preferences change. We want to give our customers what they want, sometimes before they know they want it.” Barrier described a process in which market research reveals broad areas of customer interest that in turn dictate the general priorities of the R&D team. How general? Talking with Barrier, Joyce, and Nissen, I heard several references to consumer interest in the area of “health and wellness”—though Nissen was quick to clarify that “we’re not claiming to sell healthy products.” Indications that consumers might be interested in sweet snacks with vaguely healthy associations inspired, for example, the development of a pomegranate-and-berries smoothie (antioxidants!) for the DQ-owned Orange Julius chain—as well as experiments with granola-crunch Blizzards (the lab developed a delicious product, said Nissen, but franchisees have been “a little skittish” about cereal-based menu items since a misadventure with Rice Krispies). In its darker varieties, even chocolate can be considered healthy: more antioxidants! (Chocolate was featured in another Blizzard invention that didn’t fly with franchisees, since it also involved significant quantities of cayenne pepper.)
With a chain that has spread across multiple continents, there are local tastes to consider as well: At least one product available in DQ’s several hundred East Asian locations is not yet for sale in the United States. With respect to green-tea Blizzards, said Barrier, American consumers are just “not there yet.”
Even in cases where consumer demand is crystal-clear, DQ R&D faces formidable technical challenges. “Inclusions” (items mixed with DQ’s signature soft-serve ice cream) must last at least four months without losing color or flavor, and also must be able to survive the violent Blizzardization process without losing their identity. Barrier and Joyce have been stymied by a certain cookie whose brand name they could not reveal but which for years has been the elusive holy grail of Blizzard development. “People always say they would love to see this cookie made into a Blizzard, but it’s too delicate,” said Joyce, shaking her head. “When you break it up, it just turns into crumbs.”
As a trusted name in frozen treats, DQ can take risks with its cold confections—Joyce offered the example of the avant-garde Treatzza Pizza, a rousing success in the 1990s (“we took our ice cream cake and turned it inside-out”)—but it needs to tread more cautiously with its entrée offerings. “We’re still establishing our food credentials” outside of ice cream, said Joyce, although she noted that DQ is currently “pushing the salad envelope.”
Barrier, Joyce, and Nissen were mum about future developments, but they pointed me to the nearby Normandale Boulevard location for a cutting-edge DQ experience—for example, it’s one of the first to serve new panini-like grilled sandwiches. The restaurant is also used for franchisee training, and my waffle-bowl sundae was delivered by a wildly enthusiastic man. “That looks delicious!” he boomed as he set it down. It was.
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