Red-hot frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry has received a $27.5 million infusion of cash from Starbucks founder Howard Schultz's venture capital firm, Fortune has learned.

The deal, which will be announced later today, confirms long-held speculation that Seattle-based Maveron - whose prior investments include eBay, drugstore.com, and Good Technology, now owned by Motorola - sees a bright future for Pinkberry, which was launched two years ago by a failed restaurateur and a former nightclub bouncer.

Schultz was not available to comment, but in a press release touting the deal he called Pinkberry founders Shelly Hwang and Young Lee "visionary entrepreneurs" and labeled their brand "a cultural phenomenon."

The implication, as if we didn't see this one coming, is that L.A.'s dirty little double-parking secret is a Fruity Pebble away from toppling over into critical mass, whereupon they'll surely adopt the same Synergistic Rollout tactics that managed to blanket the country in a sea of green and brown, and rendered, "Would you like to Venti that for 49 cents more?" the new upselling mantra of an over-caffeinated generation. Resistance, as they say, is futile: The Swirly Goodness has landed.

• Starbucks founder bites into Pinkberry [Forbes via EaterLA]

Intrigued by the mystery of whether the product is actually yogurt, The Times sent samples of Pinkberry — along with Golden Spoon and Baskin-Robbins frozen yogurt — to a food lab for analysis.

The test results were clear: "Bottom line, they all had cultures," said Brian Parmenter of Bodycote FPL, a food-testing lab in Portland, Ore. What's more, they are all relatively low-calorie and fat-free. Of the three samples, Pinkberry logged the lowest calories per ounce with 26 and undetectable levels of fat. [...]

But wait, wait, wait, it's not that simple — or so say the attorneys who filed the lawsuits. Pinkberry isn't meeting the minimum 10 million cultures per gram required in frozen yogurt at the point of manufacturing, they say, and there's still that problem of where the yogurt is mixed.

"That's not really the whole story," attorney Mary Glarum said. "There are still a lot of open questions. If they have nothing to hide, than they should tell people what's in their product."

Perhaps, but as we quietly revealed last week, any relative good customers thought they might be doing for themselves would be immediately offset by the guilt they felt over knowing the tart zip of their seemingly innocuous summer addiction was derived from pulverized skeletons of some of the natural world's rarest and most adorable creatures.

• Pinkberry passes test, but cold war goes on [LAT]

Now, LA Observed notes that the company is feverishly working with a "dairy science expert" to help their product meet the California Food and Agricultural Code's stringent yogurt guidelines. Until then, however, the Y-word has been stricken from their marketing materials and website, where its now described as, "chilly bliss, honest food and dessert reinvented." But while Pinkberry is working with authorities to address the issue, concern now shifts towards the scores of knockoffs popping up around the city: Faux-yogurt trafficking officials are worried they won't be able to adequately police the steady stream of contraband entering the L.A. market—highly addictive varieties with names like Ice and White Gold, that earn a street value as high as $2 per ounce.

• Pinkberry's legal jam [LA Observed]

We're not entirely sure how long it will take to get to the bottom of the great mystery of what single ingredient makes up the only product Pinkberry currently sells at greatly inflated prices. Regardless of whether or not your cup contains an impostor, however, you are fully encouraged to continue emptying your wallets at the altar of the soft serve treat for as long as you like. That is, at least until the Pinkberry franchises are replaced by the next culinary fad to come down the pike—which, our in-the-know foodie friends have tipped us, is likely to be sashimi-flavored gelato.

• Pinkberry Feels the Heat, "Investigates" Claims [Eater LA]
• [Pinkberry.com]

The suit alleges that Pinkberry has unlawfully capitalized on the health-consciousness of the California public by falsely calling its product "frozen yogurt." Plaintiff contends that, in direct violation of California law, Pinkberry's product is made from a powder base, mixed with water and/or milk on site, and then sold without notice to consumers of its ingredients.

The plaintiff contends Pinkberry's dry powder mix lacks the bacteria or bacterial cultures that define yogurt and create its health benefits.

It's not hard to see how the stated label of "yogurt," paired with the product's light, tangy consistency, might have led customers to assume a small herd of free-grazing cows wandered behind those swinging doors, having their udders massaged by round-the-clock shiatsu practitioners before their macrobiotic milk was slow-churned by clog-wearing yogurtmaids into a miracle dairy elixir. If the plaintiff's claims are true, and they have just been spending five bucks a pop for the negligable nutritional benefits of some sweetened talc and water with some kiwi chunks on top, they might have thought twice about feeding their Crackberry habits.

• Previously: Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Jake Gyllenhaal Overwhelmed By Pinkberry Topping Selection [Defamer]