Business history of Dreyer Grand Ice Cream

At the age of eighteen, in 1906, he earned his passage to United States from Germany by working as a galley boy in the steamer SS Kaiser Wilhelm.

On the last night of his journey, he made special dessert of fresh fruit, gelatin and sugar that was a hit with the passenger.

In 1928 William Dreyer joined with Joseph Edy, a candy maker to found the Grand Ice Cream in Oakland, California.

William Dreyer is credited with inventing many popular flavours. In 1929, he added walnuts and bite-sized marshmallows cut form large ones with his wife’s sewing shears, to make first batch of rocky road ice cream. The brand remains one of America’s favorite ice creams.

In 1946, Edy and Dreyer went their separate ways. Dreyer, along with his son, renamed the company Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream.

William Dreyer, Jr. assumed leadership of the firm in 1953 and then sold it to key officers in 1963.

Under the leadership of T. Gary Rogers and William F. Cronk, who bought the company in 1977, Dreyer’s expanded from the Western states to states east of the Rocky Mountain where brand was named Edy’s Grand Ice Cream in honor of the cofounder. It was also to avoid confusion with Breyer’s, a major Unilever ice cream brand that was established on the East Coast.

West of the Rockies it is still known as Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream.

In 1981, the firm went public and began a direct-to-store delivery network. Expansion through licensing agreements added the names Starbuck Coffee Company, M&M Mars and Godiva Chocolatier, Inc to selected product labels.

In 1987 Dreyer’s responding to the concern about fat, pioneered the light ice cream subcategory by introducing a low fat ice cream.

The firm began global sales in 1992 and became the leading marketer of packaged ice cream in the United States.

In 2003 the company merged with Nestle Ice Cream Company to form Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream Holdings, Inc. Nestle took full control in 2006, which also gave them the rights to the manufacture of Haagen-Dazs products in North America.
Business history of Dreyer Grand Ice Cream