When you stroll through many of the nation’s malls and shopping strips lately, you see one shuttered store after another. And then there’s the fro-yo shops.
In Southern California and in pockets across the U.S., frozen yogurt shops are popping up like crazy this year — especially pump-it-yourself shops, primed to rival the new “full-service†stars Pinkberry and Red Mango. Two self-serve frozen-yogurt chains are emerging — each opening new stores at a rapid pace — alongside an increasing number of mom-and-pop (or just dude-and-dude) establishments.
All told, it’s a lot of fro-yo. According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, there were already 250 individual shops in L.A. County by early in 2009.
Overall, the frozen dessert industry has grown by 16 percent since 2003, according to research firm Market-Research.com, to become a $12.1 billion business — and much of that growth has been from frozen yogurt. Story continues here.
Photo: Yogurtland.