Koru Yoghurt

Recently, I had the chance to try a new yoghurt before it hits the shelves of the grocery stores.

When I was asked to preview the yoghurt, it was described as silky-smooth, creamy, and un-traditionally sweetened with honey and sugar.

I'm not sure if you can tell from this picture, but the description of creamery-style yoghurt is spot-on.  This is the creamiest yoghurt I've ever tried.  

I received four flavors as part of the preview and immediately wanted to try the pomegranate-cherry.  

The list of ingredients is pretty minimal and each item is recognizable.  Cultured pasteurized milk, cream, skim milk, sugar, cherries, (contains less than 2%) of honey, cornstarch, pomegranate juice concentrate, natural flavors, pectin, purple sweet potato juice (color), tomato lycopene extract, citric acid, vitamin d3.  

So, my review:  I really enjoyed it!  I'm excited for everyone else in the family to try it.  My boys are going skiing tonight, so I'll send one along for each of them and then ask for their opinion when they return home. 
I'm not really a milk person, but I enjoy good cheese and yoghurt and this will definitely be something I plan on buying when it arrives in stores. 

It's quite different than the Fage brand yogurt.  Koru has much less tang and is quite a bit sweeter.  For me, that's both a good thing and a bad thing.  Plain yogurt is a bit tart for me, but I don't always love a sweet yogurt.  I really enjoyed the creaminess of the Koru, which I believe is lacking in the Fage, especially the low-fat and fat-free varieties.

The yoghurt tasted very minimally processed.  I didn't notice any whey on top (or separation of any kind), and it looked very natural.  I liked the cherry-pomegranate flavor, but I think I'd prefer that to be a little more on the tart-side, as a complement to the creaminess and natural sweetness of the yoghurt. 

This is the first time I've participated in a market research study associated with my blog.  It was really fun!  I will gladly taste food and then talk about it.  It reminds me of being on student council in middle school and being asked to taste test the new food choices about to be offered in the cafeteria - probably one of my few recollections from grades 6-8!

**update**  Rob and the kids loved the yoghurt!  We all think it tastes like ice cream, but not in a weird way. 

I spoke today with some of the team members from Koru and found some additional information, which I found to be very interesting.  The original recipe is from a yoghurt still produced in New Zealand, and adapted for the US market (basically to comply with USDA regulations).  The mix-in flavors will be familiar with a little bit of adventurous flavor thrown in.  For example, strawberry-goji, is the remaining flavor I was unable to try.  The Koru team is committed to only including mix-in flavors that occur in nature, so if you like something like boston cream pie, you'll have to look elsewhere. 

In the next few weeks or so, I hope to have some coupons for my readers to try the yoghurt.  It's been introduced into some of the stores in the US, so I'll keep my eye on on its availability around here.  Koru is a subsidiary of Land o Lakes and the yoghurt is produced in Minneapolis, MN.  If you see it in your store, try it and let me know what you think!