All photographs: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian View image in fullscreen All photographs: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian Ice-cream and sorbet ‘It exists only for pleasure’: does ice-cream have a future in the age of wellness fads and weight-loss drugs? As fitness-conscious consumers turn away from processed foods, the industry is scrambling for new ideas, including nutrient-rich lollies and protein-packed tubs. Will they take the fun out of this summer treat?
Last month I stood in the biggest ice-cream factory in Britain and watched a 5-metre Viennetta mint-flavoured ice-cream cake get made. The factory – which is owned by the Magnum Ice Cream Company and produces nine different brands of ice-cream – is based in an enormous building in Gloucester, where the air is thick with the scent of custard. I walked past the Twister and Solero sections on my way in, through clouds of tangy fruit, before arriving at the Viennetta assembly line, where everything smelled minty fresh. A Viennetta is built on a conveyor belt by a fully automated system, and watching it take shape was oddly hypnotic. Every few inches a nozzle attached to the belt squirted out a frilly layer of mint ice-cream, then another nozzle smoothed a flat layer of vanilla on top of that, then came a squirt of chocolate sauce, and it was back to frilly mint again. On and on it went, layer upon layer, popping out finished Viennettas at the end of the line at a rate of 200 cakes every 60 seconds.
A slop bucket full of Viennetta overrun stood at the side of the conveyer belt and I fought a strong urge to squelch my fingers into it. Later, the factory operations manager allowed me to push my whole hand into the slop bucket up to the wrist and then lick my hand at a sink, before washing it and resuming the tour.
View image in fullscreen A conveyor belt of Viennettas … View image in fullscreen … and Magnums in the company’s ice-cream factory I had travelled to the factory at a tricky moment for ice-cream. Magnum – which owns Viennetta, Ben & Jerry’s, Solero and Twister, along with most of the other lollies you can buy from an ice-cream van – reported falling sales in the last quarter of 2025. The global ice-cream industry is worth £85bn and Magnum controls 20% of it, so the stakes are high. In June, Magnum was the most shorted large cap stock in Europe, with investors betting against the company because of doubts about how ice-cream will survive in the age of Ozempic. Magnum’s sales rose in the most recent quarter, driven by record temperatures, but the stock price remains volatile because investors fear people will not be eating much ice-cream in the future, says markets analyst David Hayes from Jefferies investment bank. In the US – where one in eight people are now taking GLP-1s – ice-cream sales have fallen in the past year, according to consumer research firm NielsenIQ. The British ice-cream industry looks set to suffer the same fate: 1.6 million UK adults used weight loss drugs between 2024 and 2025, and that number is predicted to jump after this month’s release of the UK’s second, and much cheaper, weight-loss pill.
Such drugs are not the only problem ice-cream makers have to contend with. In recent years, as wellness culture has gained momentum, a growing obsession with protein and fibre has changed the way we eat. Protein is touted as a magical cure for all manner of ills: perimeno…