Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Restaurants |
Founded | January 2005 in West Hollywood, California |
Founder | Shelly Hwang Young Lee |
Headquarters | Scottsdale, Arizona, USA |
Number of locations | 260 restaurants [1] |
Area served | Bahrain, Canada, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Liberia, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Cameroon |
Key people | Eric Lefebvre, CEO [2] |
Products | Frozen yogurt Smoothies Fruit Parfait Fresh Fruit Bowl |
Owner | MTY Food Group |
Parent | Kahala Brands (2015–present) |
Website | pinkberry |
Pinkberry is a franchise of frozen dessert restaurants headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. [3] There are currently over 260 stores in 20 countries. The first store was opened in January 2005 by Hye Kyung (Shelly) Hwang and Young Lee. [4] The restaurant allows customers to customize their yogurt with a variety of toppings.
Hwang's first business venture was to open a formal English teahouse on a tiny residential street called Huntley Drive in West Hollywood, California. However, after the city refused to approve an alcohol permit for Hwang and her business partner, architect Young Lee, they decided to go with their second plan, which was a frozen yogurt concept reviving the craze of the 1980s. [5] People were soon driving across town and standing in line for up to 20 to 30 minutes to get their fix of "the taste that launched 1,000 parking tickets." [4] The second store opened in August 2006 and the third one on La Brea and Melrose avenues in early September 2006. [6] After,[ when? ] stores began springing up all over Southern California and also branches in New York. In October 2009, Pinkberry opened its first overseas branch in the State of Kuwait at the Avenues shopping mall.[ citation needed ]
On October 16, 2007, the firm took in a $27.5 million investment from Maveron, the venture fund founded by Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, to expand the firm's concept nationwide. [7]
On May 1, 2009, Pinkberry announced its plans to expand its market both internationally and domestically, after receiving $9 million in second-round funding from investors. As part of its plans, Pinkberry has partnered with Kuwaiti retail conglomerate M.H. Alshaya Co. to open stores in several countries in the Middle East and signed with HMSHost to open locations in airports nationwide, the first of which will open in the late summer 2009. [8] In 2010, the company expanded in the Southern United States. In April 2010, the original Pinkberry store in West Hollywood, still lacking adequate parking, was closed and converted into an administrative building for the chain. [9]
After poor sales and several store closures from over-expansion, in 2015 Kahala Brands acquired Pinkberry as their 18th brand. [10] There is no information on how much co-founders Hwang and Lee received upon selling Pinkberry to Kahala Brands in December 2015. Currently, Shelly Hwang is the Chief Product Officer and Board Director of Pinkberry. [11]
The Pinkberry brand has been designed and managed by LA-based branding firm Ferroconcrete. [12] Pinkberry has been featured in an episode of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm (season 8, episode 5, 'Vow of Silence') and in an episode of 2021’s “And Just Like That” (season 1, episode 3, ‘When in Rome’). Mentioned in the Comedy Central cartoon Ugly Americans (season 2, episode 9, 'Lilly and the Beast'), mentioned in two episodes of the TBS animated sitcom American Dad (season 6, episode 17, 'Home Wrecker' and season 11, episode 2, 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Smith'), and in a few scenes of the 2014 film Still Alice . Pinkberry was featured in the Broadway musical Be More Chill , and mentioned in the novel November 9 by Colleen Hoover, and in the 2014 film Horrible Bosses 2 .
Originally marketed as frozen yogurt, Pinkberry has faced complaints that its product is fraudulent because it does not meet the California Department of Food and Agriculture's definition of frozen yogurt because it does not contain the necessary amount of bacterial cultures per ounce. The Los Angeles Times sent samples of Pinkberry's product to a lab and revealed that Pinkberry did contain active yogurt cultures, but it does not contain the minimum amount of culture to call itself frozen yogurt, according to California state law. [13] According to the Los Angeles Times, Pinkberry's product had 69,000 bacterial cultures per gram, compared to 200,000 for Baskin-Robbins. The National Yogurt Association (NYA) established its own criteria for live and active culture yogurt. For manufacturers to carry their Live and Active Culture seal, refrigerated yogurt products must contain at least 100 million cultures per gram at the time of manufacture, and frozen yogurt products must contain 10 million cultures per gram at the time of manufacture. This level was based on a survey of leading research scientists involved in clinical studies of the health attributes associated with live and active culture yogurt. [14]
Pinkberry appears to have altered its dessert recipe and has now earned the right to call its product real yogurt. Pinkberry officially received the Live and Active Cultures Seal from the National Yogurt Association on April 17, 2008, almost 3 years after the initial "real yogurt" lawsuit was filed. [15]
The Pinkberry jingle heard on its website is sung by the 1980s musician Tigra, from L'Trimm. Apparently in response to the recent lawsuit against Pinkberry claiming that its product is not "real yogurt", for a while Pinkberry had removed all lyrics to this jingle on its website except for the word "Pinkberry", which repeats over and over again at the chorus (prior to this change, the jingle had lyrics that characterized Pinkberry's product as "yogurt", and compared its product as better than ice cream). [16]
The unproven health benefits attributed to yogurt that were previously posted on the walls of Pinkberry (e.g., cures colon cancer, fights yeast infections) have been removed. [17]
Yogurt is a food produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. Fermentation of sugars in the milk by these bacteria produces lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to give yogurt its texture and characteristic tart flavor. Cow's milk is most commonly used to make yogurt. Milk from water buffalo, goats, ewes, mares, camels, and yaks is also used to produce yogurt. The milk used may be homogenized or not. It may be pasteurized or raw. Each type of milk produces substantially different results.
Frozen yogurt is a frozen dessert made with yogurt and sometimes other dairy and non-dairy products. Frozen yogurt is a frozen product containing the same basic ingredients as ice cream, but contains live bacterial cultures.
A frozen meal, prepackaged meal, ready-made meal, ready meal (UK), frozen dinner, and microwave meal is ultra-processed food portioned for an individual. A frozen meal in the United States and Canada usually consists of a type of meat, fish, or pasta for the main course, and sometimes vegetables, potatoes, and/or a dessert. Some frozen meals feature Indian, Chinese, Mexican, and other foods of international customs. Another form of convenience food, which is merely a refrigerated ready meal that requires less heating but expires sooner, is popular.
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TCBY is an American chain of frozen yogurt stores. It is one of the largest U.S. retailers of soft-serve frozen yogurt.
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J&J Snack Foods Corp. (JJSFC) is an American manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of name brand snack foods and frozen beverages. Headquartered in Mt. Laurel, NJ, JJSF uses over 175 facilities for manufacturing, warehousing, and distributing located in 44 states, Mexico, and Canada. The company is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market as "JJSFC", and serves both national and international markets.
Soft serve, also known as soft ice, is a frozen dessert and variety of ice cream, similar to conventional ice cream, but softer and less dense due to more air being introduced during freezing. Soft serve has been sold commercially since the late 1930s in the United States.
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Strained yogurt, Greek or Greek-style yogurt, yogurt cheese, sack yogurt or kerned yogurt is yogurt that has been strained to remove most of its whey, resulting in a thicker consistency than normal unstrained yogurt, while still preserving the distinctive sour taste of yogurt. Like many types, strained yogurt is often made from milk enriched by boiling off some water content, or by adding extra butterfat and powdered milk. In Europe and North America, it is often made from low-fat or fat-free cow's milk. In Iceland a similar product named skyr is made.
Yogen Früz is a Canadian chain of frozen yogurt and smoothie stores that also serves healthy alternative food products. The chain is run through company-owned, franchised, and non-traditional partnerships. The chain operates worldwide and has its global headquarters in Markham, Ontario in the Greater Toronto Area of Canada.
Red Mango FC, LLC is an American frozen yogurt and smoothie brand known for its all-natural frozen yogurt, fresh fruit smoothies, yogurt parfaits, and fresh juices. There are now more than 50 locations in over 15 states in the United States and Puerto Rico, and one each in El Salvador and Qatar. In 2011, Red Mango was named the No. 1 Zagat Rated chain in America for smoothies and frozen yogurt.
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Kahala Brands is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada-based MTY Food Group Inc. of Montreal, Quebec. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Kahala is one of North America's largest holding company of franchise fast food restaurant companies. In May 2016, the publicly traded Canadian MTY Food Group announced a friendly takeover deal with the Kahala Brands. MTY agreed to pay about US$300 million to acquire Kahala. The two companies generated nearly $2 billion in revenues in the previous year. Jeff Smit was chosen to lead the US operations of MTY.
Yogurtland is an international frozen yogurt franchise headquartered in Farmers Branch, Texas, U.S.. Yogurtland provides self-serve frozen yogurt with active cultures, as well as other frozen desserts such as ice cream, sorbet and plant-based treats that cater to a variety of dietary preferences. Yogurtland has stores in ten states in the United States as well as United Arab Emirates, Guam, Oman, Indonesia, and Thailand. The yogurt chain is considered the pioneers of the self-serve format, which gives guests the opportunity to customize their flavors and toppings.
Menchie's Frozen Yogurt is an American frozen yogurt chain company founded in 2007, based in the San Fernando Valley, California area. Menchie's offers self-serve frozen yogurt with different choices of yogurt flavors and toppings. Menchie's has 540 locations and can be found in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, the Bahamas, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
La Salsa is a chain of fast-casual Tex Mex restaurants founded in Los Angeles, California in 1979, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona and is owned by Canadian franchisor MTY Food Group. The chain emphasizes fresh ingredients, and each restaurant features a self-serve salsa bar.
The Bigg Chill is a frozen yogurt shop in Westwood, Los Angeles. It was established in 1986, and bought in 1990 by current owners Diane Dinow and her daughter, Cary Russell. The store has been noted for its interior design, variety of conventional flavors, and longevity.