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After fried chicken, bubble tea, fresh bread and donuts all had their turn tempting the fast-food taste buds of Jakarta’s on-the-go diners, yogurt is taking its shot at dominating the city’s quick-bite market.

These days, every large mall in Jakarta has at least one frozen yogurt shop, varying from small counters with no seating that sell different flavors of the dairy offering, to donut and burger outlets that include frozen yogurt on their menus. At least one major cinema chain also sells the frozen treat, alongside nachos, popcorn and other movie-time snacks.

Jane, a bank employee who graduated from college last year, said she eats up to three servings of frozen yogurt a day.

“First it was only Sour Sally, but then I got so addicted that I couldn’t pass a single day without having it, and any brand would do,” she said.

Although frozen yogurt has been available in Jakarta for many years, Sour Sally, a local company started by businessman Donny Pramono, popularized the treat when it opened a small yogurt shop at Senayan City in May of last year. Long queues are now seen at most of its tiny, candy-colored shops, which number 21 across the country, with two more due to open in December.

Within a year of Sour Sally’s debut, other yogurt shops began to appear to compete with its striped-legging icon.

To see what the fuss is all about, a colleague and I taste-tested four yogurt shops at two malls in South Jakarta.

Our first stop was Smooch, a large store on the fourth floor of Grand Indonesia’s west mall. Smooch serves eight different flavors of yogurt, and offered the largest number of topping variations we saw on our taste tour.

We shared a small mixed cup of mojito and plain sour yogurt, topped with fresh peaches and a tiramisu bar. The yogurt was neither creamy nor sour. The mojito was rather sweet, and even the plain version on its own was not very sour. If you are eager to try as many flavors as possible, however, with lots of self-serve toppings, this is the place for you. They also have nutritional information posted.

Samuel Oetoro, a clinical nutrition specialist at Siloam hospital, said that yogurt is a healthy food choice, as it can be a source of probiotics, which people can also get from taking supplements.

“Probiotics means good bacteria, and we need that to keep our digestive systems well,” Oetero said.

Dr. Widodo, a digestion expert at Bunda Hospital, though, said theoretically all yogurts should contain probiotics, but it depends on the how the processing is handled.

The nutrional value of the treat can also be affected by the toppings, Dr. Widodo said. “We should pay attention to the freshness of the fruits and the sugar content in toppings like candies and cookies.”

However, there is no way to check the accuracy of the nutritional information of a cup of yogurt other than to test it in a lab. Generally, Oetero said, the trend to eating more yogurt is good, especially when it is part of a healthy lifestyle.

“Strictly speaking, it is only good if we opt for plain yogurt, because it is fat-free and sugar-free.”

From Smooch, we went downstairs to Red Mango, which according to a promotional banner is Leonardo DiCaprio’s favorite yogurt provider. It offered three flavors — plain sour, strawberry and blackberry — and customers can mix the three to suit their tastes. Toppings included chocolate cornflakes, Oreo cookies, almonds, brownies, KitKats, M&M’s, chocolate chips, fruit and mixed mochi — Japanese-style sticky rice cakes. We ordered a small cup of blackberry mix twist, a mix of plain and blackberry yogurt, with mango topping. The yogurt was richer and sourer than at Smooch, athough the blackberry was rather sweet, and to me, its dark purple color looked scary rather than appealing. The fresh mangoes were of good quality, but, unfortunately, no nutritional information was available in the shop.

At Red Mango, we were more confused about where to sit than what to eat. Only a few tables were available and they were all full. We saw a mother ordering cups of yogurt for her children, and another group of people who stayed at their table even after they finished their desserts.

Rizaldi Parani, a sociology lecturer at Pelita Harapan University, said female customers and children made up the majority of consumers of sweet treats, which include frozen yogurts as well as other kind of snacks, such as bread.

He said healthy living was a recent lifestyle trend for Indonesians and frozen yogurt companies, many of which advertise their products as fat-free, are tapping into that trend.

“Frozen yogurt brands have also done a good job especially in approaching the female and children target market, which explains why sales have been good,” he said.

His observations were proved when we headed to a Sour Sally outlet, just a few steps away from Red Mango, where the clientele was mainly female.

There we sampled the pinklicious flavor, a sour yogurt with a slight berry taste, which staff said was their most popular variety at present. We also tried the bubblegum version, which didn’t taste like bubblegum to either of us. Instead, it had a strange cardboard or rubber-like overtone that reminded my colleague of athletic shoes.

Sour Sally originally offered only plain and green tea flavors, although toppings include cereals, chopped fruit and biscuits. We also ordered the classic, plain yogurt, which had a creamy texture. The choco mochi were rather hard to chew, though, and had little chocolate flavor.

Nutritional details are contained in a newsletter booklet we picked up at the outlet, along with other information about the company. We were disappointed that there is no seating available at Sour Sally’s Grand Indonesia outlet, although others of the brand’s shops, including branches at Mal Taman Anggrek and Pacific Place, have tables and chairs for customers.

Marcus Kandou, the director of marketing communication for Sour Sally, said the chain had the advantage of being a pioneer in the business.

“We are a local brand and we’ve conducted surveys with many of our customers and they admitted that they try other brands only to compare it with our yogurt, as if we’ve set the standard for frozen yogurt [in Indonesia],” he said.

Our last stop was Maru, a local brand located on the third floor of the Plaza Indonesia extension, which serves its yogurt with Japanese-style toppings.

Hardie Widarma, the director of Maru, said each brand of frozen yogurt had its own unique qualities that made it incomparable to other brands.

“Maru provides traditional Japanese-style toppings, such as mochi, and I planned on starting my brand way before the frozen yogurt madness hit the city,” he said.

Other than mochi, we were happy to find black sesame and red bean toppings at Maru, neither of which were available at other yogurt shops. Those were our choices, on a small cup of kiwi and original yogurt flavors. You couldn’t really taste any kiwi flavor but the toppings were tasty. An individual nutritional analysis on Maru’s receipt deserved extra points. We wanted to try their mochi-covered ice cream and yogurt, but it was sold out.

“I think all frozen yogurt brands should be like this,” said Mira, a college student, referring to the Japanese-style fro-yo, a nickname that has resulted from frozen yogurt’s recent boom. “Frozen yogurts, I think, are best served with traditional Japanese treats.”

After our informal taste test at four different shops, we both agreed that Maru’s fresh-tasting, creamy, smooth yogurt was the best we had tried.

We know where we’ll head for our next yogurt fix.



With additional reporting by Irvan Tisnabudi.