Klondike, Breyers and Dairy Queen don't meet the federal definition of ice cream. Here's who actually does
Federal law says ice cream needs 10% milkfat. Klondike, Drumstick, Breyers, Dairy Queen and Chick-fil-A don't clear it - here's who actually does.
Emily Harper
There's a federal rule that decides whether a tub in the freezer aisle gets to say "ice cream" on the front, and a handful of the biggest names in that aisle don't clear it. Not because anyone hid anything — the workaround is printed right there on the package, in a name most people scroll past: "frozen dairy dessert."
The actual rule
Under 21 CFR 135.110, the FDA's standard of identity for ice cream sets several thresholds at once: at least 10% milkfat (the ratio can shift at higher milkfat levels, but nonfat milk solids never drop below roughly 6% even at the top of that range), at least 10% nonfat milk solids at the 10% milkfat minimum, at least 1.6 pounds of total solids per gallon, a minimum weight of 4.5 pounds per gallon, and no fat that didn't come from milk except in incidental amounts as part of a flavoring ingredient.
Miss any of those and the product legally has to be called something else — usually "frozen dairy dessert," "frozen dessert," or, for soft serve, nothing resembling "ice cream" at all. "Frozen dairy dessert" is a real, defined category, not a euphemism someone made up to soften bad news.
Klondike and Drumstick: the vegetable oil swap, verified ingredient by ingredient
Multiple current Klondike and Drumstick SKUs are labeled "Frozen Dairy Dessert," not ice cream, on the package itself — that's how they're listed at Randalls and Food Lion.
Pulling the actual ingredient panels confirms why. Drumstick's Frozen Dairy Dessert Cone (UPC 072554001505) lists, in order: "Dairy product solids, skim milk, cone..., peanuts, sugar, cream, cone coating (sugar, coconut oil, palm olein..., palm oil...), chocolatey coating (coconut oil, palm oil...)." Cream shows up after skim milk and peanuts — it's a minor ingredient, and coconut and palm oil are doing the fat work that milkfat does in real ice cream. A Klondike bar (UPC 0075856001075, listed simply as "Ice cream bar") reads: "Nonfat milk, sugar, coconut oil, corn syrup, cream, corn syrup solids..." — coconut oil ahead of cream on the ingredient list.
Breyers sells both, and the split is close to even
Breyers is the clearest case because the company doesn't hide it: as of 2013, roughly 60% of its lineup was ice cream and 40% was frozen dairy dessert, a split the brand has said it made because "frozen dairy desserts have a smoother texture and less fat." Its Cookies & Cream Frozen Dairy Dessert on Tallow lists milk first, then Oreo pieces, corn syrup and fructose — cream and whey are buried in the "less than 2%" line at the bottom, with coconut oil ahead of both.
As of December 2025, Breyers and Klondike both left Unilever entirely: Unilever demerged its whole ice cream division into a standalone company, The Magnum Ice Cream Company, which began trading in London, New York and Amsterdam on December 8-9, 2025 with roughly a $9.1 billion initial market value. Drumstick is a separate brand entirely, owned by Dreyer's/Froneri, not Unilever or Magnum.
Soft serve fails on butterfat, not additives
Dairy Queen and Chick-fil-A have a different problem: not enough fat, period, no vegetable oil substitution needed. Dairy Queen's soft serve runs about 5% butterfat, half the federal 10% floor, which is exactly why the menu says "soft serve" and "treats," never "ice cream." Chick-fil-A's Icedream comes in even lower, cited at roughly 3% butterfat against the USDA's own ice cream grading reference of 10%+ — which is also why the name is "Icedream," one word, not "ice cream." Both are whipped with enough air, known in the industry as overrun, that the fat percentage that's there gets stretched even further.
What actually meets the standard
A few brands don't just clear 10% milkfat, they clear it by a wide margin, on record from the companies themselves. McConnell's Fine Ice Creams states on its own site that its base runs an "industry-highest 18+% milkfat." Van Leeuwen's CEO put the brand's own ice cream at about 18% butterfat in an on-record interview with FoodNavigator-USA. Van Leeuwen's Vanilla Bean French Ice Cream on Tallow has a seven-ingredient label to match: milk, cream, sugar, organic egg yolks, vanilla extract, salt, vanilla bean. No vegetable oil, no gums, no stabilizer blend standing in for fat.
A few smaller brands are also worth knowing by name even without a company-stated butterfat figure to cite: Alec's Ice Cream (USDA organic, A2 dairy, regenerative-verified), Cosmic Bliss's dairy line (organic grass-fed milk and cream), and Ice Cream for Bears (honey-sweetened, a custom high-milkfat blend sourced through A Greener World) are all sold and labeled as ice cream, not frozen dessert.
Check before it's in your cart
The same vegetable oils doing the fat-replacement work here — coconut, palm, soybean — are the ingredients Tallow already flags on a scan, seed-oil-swap included. Scan the barcode on a tub or box before it goes in your cart and you'll see the full ingredient breakdown, not just whichever word is biggest on the front of the package. If the front says "frozen dairy dessert," Tallow will show you exactly what's standing in for the cream.