Häagen-Dazs

Häagen-Dazs(US:/ˈhɑːɡəndæs/HAH-gən-dass,UK:/ˌhɑːɡənˈdɑːz/HAH-gən-DAHZ)is an Americanice creambrand, established byReuben and Rose Mattusinthe Bronx, New York, in 1960, owned byFroneri, a joint venture betweenNestléandPAI Partners. Starting with only three flavors:vanilla,chocolate, andcoffee, the company opened its firstretail storeinBrooklyn, New York, on November 15, 1976.The Pillsbury food conglomerate bought Häagen-Dazs in 1983, and now the brand is sold worldwide. Their product offerings include ice cream cartons, ice cream bars, ice cream cakes,sorbet,frozen yogurt, andgelato.
Häagen-Dazs's founderReuben Mattuswas born inPolandin 1912 toJewishparents. His father died duringWorld War I, and his widowed mother migrated toNew York Citywith her two children in 1921.They joined an uncle who was in theItalian lemon-icebusiness inBrooklyn. By the late 1920s, the family began making ice pops, and by 1929, chocolate-covered ice cream bars and sandwiches under the name Senator Frozen Products onSouthern Boulevardin theSouth Bronx, delivering them with a horse-drawn wagon to neighborhood stores inthe Bronx.
The Senator Frozen Products company was profitable, but by the 1950s the large mass-producers of ice cream started aprice war,leading to his decision to make a heavy kind of high-end ice cream. In 1959, he decided to form a new ice cream company with what he thought to be aDanish-sounding name, Häagen-Dazs, as a tribute to Denmark's alleged exemplary treatment ofJewsduring World War II,a move known in the marketing industry asforeign branding.Rose Mattuswould dress up in fancy clothing to distribute free samples, giving the ice cream an air of sophistication and class.
ThePillsbury Companybought Häagen-Dazs in 1983. In 1999, Pillsbury andNestlémerged their U.S. and Canadian ice cream operations into a joint venture called Ice Cream Partners.General Mills, in turn, bought Pillsbury in 2001 and succeeded to its interest in thejoint venture.That same year, Nestlé exercised its contractual right to buy out General Mills' interest in Ice Cream Partners, which included the right to a 99-year license for the Häagen-Dazs brand, until 2110.Since then, pursuant to that license, theDreyer'ssubsidiary of Nestlé has produced and marketed Häagen-Dazs products in the United States and Canada. In December 2019, Nestlé sold Dreyer's along with its rights in the Häagen-Dazs brand toFroneri, a joint venture set up by Nestlé andPAI Partnersin 2016.
"Häagen-Dazs" is an invented pseudo-Scandinavian phrase coined by the American Reuben Mattus, in a quest for a brand name that he claimed wasDanish-sounding. However, the company's pronunciation of the name ignores the letters "ä" and "s", and letters like "ä" or digraphs like "zs" do not exist in Danish.According to Mattus, it was a tribute toDenmark's exemplarytreatment of its Jewsduring theSecond World War,and included an outline map of Denmark on early labels. Mattus felt that Denmark was also known for its dairy products and had a positive image in the United States.His daughter Doris Hurley reported in the 1996PBSdocumentaryAn Ice Cream Showthat her father sat at the kitchen table for hours saying nonsensical words until he came up with a combination he liked. The reason he chose this method was so that the name would be unique and original.
Around 1988 Reuben Mattus gave an evening talk, "How to Build an Empire", at theLearning Annexin New York’s upper east side. He said that he used to sell ice cream to candy stores. One store owner said that the ice cream is of poor quality and only buys it to help as a friend. Subsequently he spent much time in the New York public library researching ice creams and ingredients. He decided to make the best ice cream from then on and  based on his research used rum from Boston and chocolate from Belgium. He wanted to differentiate his new product by using an invented exotic Scandinavian sounding name, Häagen-Dazs, and did not mention that this was related to Denmark helping Jews during the Holocaust.  He packaged the ice cream in round boxes, which was then an innovation. Grocery store owners complained that this way fewer ice creams fit in the refrigerator. He explained that what counts is how many are taken out and bought, not how many are stored. He said that he never set prices like $0.98, $1.22, but $1.00, $1.25—"honest numbers" also to exude quality.
In 1980, Häagen-Dazs unsuccessfully suedFrusen Glädjé, an American ice cream maker founded that year, for using foreign branding strategies. The phrasefrusen glädje—without theacute accent—isSwedishfor "frozen joy".In 1985, Frusen Glädjé was sold toKraft General Foods. A Kraft spokeswoman stated that Kraft sold its Frusen Glädjé license to theUnilevercorporation in 1993, but a spokesman for Unilever said that Frusen Glädjé was not part of the deal.The brand has since been discontinued.
Häagen-Dazs ice cream comes in several traditional flavors as well as several esoteric flavors that are specific to the brand, such as Vanilla Swiss Almond andBananas Foster. It is marketed as a "super-premium" brand: it is quite dense (very little air is mixed in during manufacturing), uses no emulsifiers or stabilizers other than egg yolks, and has a highbutterfatcontent. It is sold both ingrocery storesand in dedicated retail outlets servingice cream cones,sundaes, and so on.
Since 1992, most of the world's Häagen-Dazs products have been manufactured at a plant inTilloy-lès-Mofflaines, France that is now controlled by General Mills.In theUnited StatesandCanada, Häagen-Dazs is licensed to and produced byFroneri. Häagen-Dazs entered the Japanese market in 1984 by forming a joint venture withSuntoryand Takanashi Milk, which has produced their products there ever since. The factory is located inTakasaki,Gunma Prefecture, Japan.
To offset increasing ingredient and delivery costs, Häagen-Dazsdownsizedtheir pint ice cream cartons (16 US fl oz; 470 ml) in the US to 14 US fl oz (410 ml) in January 2009.In March 2009, they announced that they would be downsizing their quart cartons (32 US fl oz; 950 ml)  to 28 US fl oz (830 ml).