Häagen-Dazs

• 1. Introduction

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  Häagen-Dazs began in 1960 in the Bronx with a menu of just three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee. Today the American ice cream brand is sold around the world. Its name looks like it belongs on a Scandinavian dairy farm, yet it was dreamed up far from Europe. Behind it stood a married couple, Reuben and Rose Mattus, and a family business that had already been selling frozen treats for decades. Who were they? Why would a New York ice cream maker invent a foreign-sounding word? And how did a small Bronx company end up passing through the hands of some of the largest food corporations on earth?

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• 2. From Poland To Southern Boulevard

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  In 1921, a widowed mother brought her two children from Poland to New York City. One of them was Reuben Mattus, who had been born in Poland in 1912 to Jewish parents. His father had died during World War I. In Brooklyn, the family joined an uncle who worked in the Italian lemon-ice business. By the late 1920s they were making ice pops themselves. By 1929 they had moved on to chocolate-covered ice cream bars and ice cream sandwiches, sold under the name Senator Frozen Products. The company operated on Southern Boulevard in the South Bronx, and a horse-drawn wagon carried the goods to neighborhood stores. That modest delivery business would soon face a threat from much larger rivals.

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• 3. A Bet On Quality

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  Senator Frozen Products was profitable, but in the 1950s the big mass-producers of ice cream started a price war. Reuben Mattus answered by going in the opposite direction. Rather than compete on cheapness, he decided to make a heavy, high-end kind of ice cream. Rose Mattus played a part in selling that idea. She dressed up in fancy clothing to hand out free samples, which gave the product an air of sophistication and class. The ice cream was first sold through other outlets. The brand would not open a store of its own in Brooklyn until the 15th of November 1976.

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• 4. A Name Made Up

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  In 1959, Reuben Mattus settled on the name for his new company, and he believed it sounded Danish. He intended it as a tribute to Denmark for how it treated its Jewish citizens during World War II. Early labels even carried an outline map of the country. Yet the letter "ä" and the digraph "zs" do not exist in Danish. The phrase was invented. Mattus reasoned that Denmark had a positive image in the United States and was known for dairy products. His daughter Doris Hurley described the process in the 1996 PBS documentary An Ice Cream Show. She said her father sat at the kitchen table for hours, saying nonsensical words until one combination pleased him. He wanted a name that was unique and original. Marketers call this trick foreign branding, and in 1980 a rival would be taken to court over it.

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• 5. The Frusen Glädjé Lawsuit

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  In 1980, Häagen-Dazs sued an American ice cream maker called Frusen Glädjé, which had been founded that same year. The complaint was that Frusen Glädjé used foreign branding strategies. The suit failed. The phrase frusen glädje, written without the acute accent, is Swedish for "frozen joy". In 1985, Frusen Glädjé was sold to Kraft General Foods. Its later fate is murky. A Kraft spokeswoman said the license went to the Unilever corporation in 1993, but a Unilever spokesman said the brand was not part of that deal. The brand has since been discontinued. Häagen-Dazs, by contrast, kept its name, and its reputation rested on what sat inside the carton.

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• 6. The Super-Premium Recipe

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  Very little air is whipped into a carton of Häagen-Dazs, which makes the ice cream unusually dense. That density is the heart of its "super-premium" label. The recipe also has a high butterfat content and uses no emulsifiers or stabilizers apart from egg yolks. Alongside traditional flavors, the brand offers esoteric ones of its own, such as Vanilla Swiss Almond and Rum Raisin. Over time, the range grew well beyond the original three flavors to include ice cream bars, ice cream cakes, sorbet, frozen yogurt, frozen milkshake, gelato, and ice cream sandwiches. Shoppers can buy it in grocery stores or at dedicated retail outlets that serve cones and sundaes. Rising ingredient and delivery costs eventually reached the carton itself. In January 2009, the US pint shrank to 14 ounces, and in March 2009 the company announced that its quart would shrink to 28 ounces.

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• 7. Passing Between Giants

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  The Pillsbury Company bought Häagen-Dazs in 1983, beginning a long run of corporate handovers. In 1999, Pillsbury and Nestlé merged their US and Canadian ice cream operations into a joint venture named Ice Cream Partners. General Mills bought Pillsbury in 2001 and inherited its stake in that venture. Nestlé then exercised a contractual right that same year to buy out General Mills' interest. The buyout carried a 99-year license for the Häagen-Dazs brand, running until 2110. Under that license, Dreyer's, a Nestlé subsidiary, produced and marketed the products in the United States and Canada. In December 2019, Nestlé sold Dreyer's, along with its rights in the brand, to Froneri. Froneri is a joint venture that Nestlé and PAI Partners had set up in 2016. Outside North America, the story of who actually makes the ice cream works differently.

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• 8. Factories Around The World

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  A plant in Tilloy-lès-Mofflaines, France, has made most of the world's Häagen-Dazs products since 1992. General Mills now controls that factory. In the United States and Canada the arrangement differs, because Froneri holds the license and produces the ice cream there. Japan followed its own path. Häagen-Dazs entered that market in 1984 by forming a joint venture with Suntory and Takanashi Milk. The partners built a factory in Takasaki, in Gunma Prefecture, and it has produced the brand's Japanese products ever since.

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