There's all those pro-biotic bacteria for digestive regularity.
People on the West Coast are wild for spoiled milk in frozen form, hence the explosion of Pinkberry shops.
Now they're coming to Chicago, expecting Midwesterners to pay as much as $7 for a dollop of sweetened, frozen yogurt.
Pinkberry will be going head-to-head against Red Mango, a pricey frozen yogurt vendor that's been in town for a couple of years already.
Is there room in this economy for two places selling overpriced dairy products?
After all, Chicago isn't New York and it certainly isn't Los Angeles, where warm weather year-round makes for continued sales in December and January, when most Chicago-area ice cream parlors shut down (you can't get an Italian lemonade from Mario's after the first frost).
Just ask Michael Farah, who opened Berry Chill and then watched the chain go bankrupt.
Pinkberry and Red Mango may be counting on improvements in the economy, where people finally have a few extra dollars and they're looking to spend on something perceived as special.
Chicago is losing tourism, however, as the cost of visiting has become too high for those hard-pressed for extra dollars. Even the suburbanites are avoiding the city, with the price of parking seen as prohibitive.
As other ice cream shops leave, Pinkberry and Red Mango are moving in, but there's a reason those Ben and Jerry's shut their doors.
The economy is still floating near the bottom and people don't have money to burn on fancy frozen yogurt when they can get a cone at McDonald's for far less. New college graduates, who are more likely than grandma to buy frozen yogurt, don't have jobs and they aren't going to support one, let alone two or three, different yogurt purveyors.
There's all kinds of talk about the improving economy. If Pinkberry and Red Mango can make it in Chicago without suffering financial difficulties, then you'll know we're coming out of the recession.
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