Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.06.2014, Qupperneq 18

18
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 07 — 2014
I posted a message on Facebook looking
for someone who would be willing to
surreptitiously photograph the ingredi-
ent label on an MS Skyr package in the
US. It was obviously a mystery preying
on multiple minds: in less than twenty
minutes, I had five American volun-
teers—one requesting to undertake the
assignment while wearing “a trench
coat, cool hat and sunglasses”—and even
an offer to send pictures of a label in
Denmark. I had the photographic evi-
dence I needed within an hour.
A comparison of single-serving
MS-brand portion sizes of vanilla skyr
proved that while the Icelandic label
specifically boasts that it is “sugar-free,”
the American version contained a whop-
ping 19 grams of sugar. (For reference,
different flavours have different sugar
quantities—a single serving of US blue-
berry contains 22 grams of sugar, while
there’s only seven grams in a single serv-
ing of plain US skyr. But the protein al-
lotment stays roughly the same between
the two countries’ products—16–19
grams in each serving.) “Fat Ameri-
cans,” my mother sighed when I shared
my discovery. Many Americans I spoke
to voiced this suspicion: MS must simply
be pandering to our notorious weakness
for adding sugar to literally everything.
Later that week, however, sitting in
the inviting, airy office of Heimir Már
Helgason, MS Iceland Dairies’s export
manager, the mystery was immediate-
ly—and somewhat anticlimactically—
cleared up. “Whole Foods was not so
keen on sucralose,” he said. “When they
started talking about carrying skyr, they
came with specifications.” In fact, both
of the artificial sweeteners that are used
in the Icelandic recipe—sucralose and
acesulfame-K—are on Whole Foods’ list
of “Unacceptable Ingredients for Food.”
(Both of these additives are on the EU’s
list of “authorised sweeteners” and are
clearly listed on Icelandic skyr labels.)
Given Whole Food’s objections, MS
worked with the store to come up with
a new recipe that utilised real sugar but
was, in all other respects, identical to the
Icelandic recipe. Now, the dairy factory
in Selfoss, South Iceland, has separate
vats for the skyr that is flown over to the
US on a weekly basis. “It’s tricky,” Hei-
mir laughed.
Six Things You (Maybe)
Don’t Know About Skyr
So, it turns out that there’s no outra-
geous plot behind the two different skyr
recipes. Americans love their sugar, and
Icelanders nearly as much—we just dif-
fer about which of the artificial varieties
are acceptable (Americans tend toward
wholesome high fructose corn syrup,
while there are strict quotas on this in-
gredient’s usage in the EU.) Neverthe-
less, my meeting with Heimir did reveal
some unexpected fun facts about this
much-beloved “high-protein, virtually
fat-free delight”:
1. Icelanders Are Only
Sorta Into Skyr
Although skyr is firmly entrenched in
the psyches of many foreigners as some-
thing uniquely and popularly Icelandic,
Heimir says that “the local market is
actually quite stagnant” and has been
for some time. The demand for local
dairy products dropped so significantly
in past years that a term was created—
smjörfjall, or “butter mountain”—for
excess dairy products languishing on
Icelandic shelves. And the surplus con-
tinued long enough that local dairy
farmers set about actively reducing their
dairy cow stock.
2. Foreigners, However,
Love Skyr
Although MS’s research shows that Ice-
landers’ demand for skyr basically never
changes, in recent years the local market
has grown, which Heimir attributes to
the rising number of tourists. Skyr sales
to restaurants and hotels are “boom-
ing” he notes, and also points out that
the popularity of low-carb, high protein
diets have made it “okay again to eat
more butter and fat.” This, of course, has
meant that those farmers who reduced
their stocks are now scrambling to meet
the increasing demand (it takes at least
three years for a young calf to reach
milking maturity).
3. And Finns Love Skyr
More Than Anyone
In the last five years, skyr sales within
Scandinavia have increased “tenfold,”
and are expected to generate 35 mil-
lion Euro in sales (over 10,000 tonnes of
skyr) during 2014. Last year, more than
1,000 tonnes of skyr were consumed in
Finland alone, an already staggering
quantity that is only expected to in-
crease. And Finns aren’t satisfied with
the typical array of strawberry, blueber-
ry and vanilla offerings, either—“every
three or four months they push us for
new flavours,” says Heimir. These have
included black currant, mango, blood
orange, and baked apple. The latter has
just made its way into Icelandic markets,
but if you have a hankering for any of the
other types, you’ll have to hop a plane to
Helsinki.
4. “Traditional Skyr” Is
Not As Popular
Responding to a downtrend in sales
in 2000, MS turned away from a more
traditional skyr production method
which utilised a dairy centrifuge.
(Hand-powered dairy centrifuges
have been in use since the 1860s, and
their commercial counterparts are
still widely used in dairies today. In
fact, the centrifugal method is still em-
ployed by Siggi’s brand skyr in the US.)
Seeking to produce a creamier skyr,
MS began to use an ultrafiltration
method that concentrates whey pro-
teins while still thickening the skyr.
This new-fangled method gives it the
“velvety texture” which has proved
more popular among consumers.
5. There Are Two Major
Brands, But Only One
Company
MS Dairies—a cooperative of about
700 family farms around Iceland—has
a default monopoly over skyr produc-
tion in the country, having merged with
Norðurmjólk, the
only other dairy that
produced skyr, in
2007. Before the
merger, the Akur-
eyri-based Norður-
mjólk produced
KEA brand skyr.
KEA was made
with a different
production method
and was particu-
larly favoured by
people in North-
ern Iceland. So, in
recognition of this
popularity, KEA
skyr is still pro-
duced and sold in
its original packag-
ing, even though its
manufacturer no longer exists. All MS
skyr is now made in Selfoss, in the south,
while the former Norðurmjólk factories
are being converted for cheese pro-
duction.
6. Not All Skyr Is
Vegetarian
This mind-blower was actually uncov-
ered by a former Grapeviner several
years ago, but is worth reiterating. Tra-
ditionally, skyr is made from ‘undanren-
na’ (“skim milk”) that has been heated,
curdled with ‘ostahleypir’ (“rennet”),
and then condensed when the whey pro-
teins are separated. (Rennet, for those
not familiar, is an enzyme produced in
the stomachs of baby mammals, and is
extracted once the animal is dead. It’s
a common dairy coagulant that is often
used in cheese-making.) MS thickens
its (MS brand) skyr using ultrafiltration
(see Fun Fact #4), and so a coagulant
such as rennet is not needed or used. But
its KEA brand skyr (Fun Fact #5) is still
curdled with rennet, meaning that this
dairy treat is not actually vegetarian.
However, most consumers would have
no way of knowing this without contact-
ing the company directly: in Iceland, it’s
not required that ren-
net be listed on food
labels.
Real Skyr
Perhaps most per-
tinent to those “real”
skyr enthusiasts, how-
ever, was the discov-
ery that Icelandic skyr
need not actually be
made in Iceland. Fol-
lowing successful li-
censee arrangements
in several Scandina-
vian countries, MS
is currently seeking
an American partner
to produce its skyr in
the US (all that fly-
ing back and forth is expensive, and is
presumably not great carbon footprint-
wise). “Our licensees are using our
recipe, getting our technical know-how
and using our special Icelandic skyr cul-
tures, which are based on the very old
skyr-making tradition, and not acces-
sible to other manufacturers,” Heimir
says.
In the notable instance of Finland—
whose demand for skyr was simply too
great to be met by Icelandic producers—
all of its skyr is actually produced at a
Danish dairy. “We’ve tried the Danish
skyr and we can’t tell the difference,”
says Heimir, “which is kind of sad, really.
Because then what makes it Icelandic?
The recipe? The cultures?”
Whatever it is, it’s delicious.
The Great
ConSkyracy
That Wasn’t
Real sugar, new recipes, and how
Finns are the real gourmands
Words by Larissa Kyzer
Photo by Nanna Dís
Iceland’s MS Dairies began exporting skyr to the US’s
high-end grocery store Whole Foods in 2006, follow-
ing the yogurt-like product’s success in Scandinavia
and Switzerland. The arrival of this “real” skyr stateside
was big news for American Icelandophiles and those for
whom the more prominent, New York-produced “Icelan-
dic-style yogurt” simply didn’t compare. But there was
rumour of a rather nefarious con-skyracy circulating
among imported dairy enthusiasts, namely that the MS
Skyr sold in the US was not the same as the skyr that
many have come to know and love in Iceland. This obvi-
ously called for some serious investigative journalism.
“Last year, more than
1,000 tonnes of skyr
were consumed in Fin-
land alone, an already
staggering quantity
that is only expected to
increase.”
Food | Dairy