Blue Bell Creameries History

Established in 1907, the Brenham Creamery Company had its roots as a cooperative founded by dairy farmers in Washington County. In its initial stages, the founders ingeniously repurposed an abandoned cotton gin into a creamery, where surplus cream was transformed into butter. Within a few years, the company diversified its product line to include ice cream, which was then delivered to neighbors via horse and wagon.

The primary emphasis on butter production persisted until 1911, when the creamery transitioned to hand-cranking two gallons of ice cream daily in a wooden tub filled with ice. All essential ingredients—milk, cream, eggs, and fresh fruit—were sourced locally from farmers and producers. In 1930, a pivotal moment arrived as the company rebranded itself as Blue Bell Creameries, drawing inspiration from the bluebell wildflower indigenous to Texas, known to thrive during the scorching summers—a perfect backdrop for ice cream indulgence. The year 1936 marked further advancements with Blue Bell acquiring a refrigerated truck and a continuous freezer, facilitating expanded distribution and production capabilities.

For nearly half a century, the company predominantly focused on butter production until a strategic shift occurred in 1958, leading to an exclusive concentration on ice cream manufacturing. Blue Bell ice cream made its debut outside of Texas in the 1980s. Noteworthy milestones include the introduction of the flagship flavor, Homemade Vanilla, in 1969, and the company's pioneering role in mass-producing the cookies 'n cream flavor. While initially utilizing Nabisco's Oreo cookies, Blue Bell currently crafts its own cookies.
Blue Bell Creameries History

Frederick's Dairies History

Around 1870, Frederick Angelo, an Italian immigrant, came to England and launched his ice cream enterprise in the vicinity of Paradise Street and Meadow Lane in Sheffield during the late 1890s. This move followed his relocation from his hometown in Italy. The business initially started by selling ice cream from carts that were pulled by hand, but later shifted to carts drawn by horses. Frederick's son, John Russel, took the initiative to relocate the business to Chesterfield in 1925.

In 1988, the company took on the endeavor of creating Mars bar-flavored ice cream. By 1998, they successfully obtained the franchise rights for Cadbury Ice Cream. Subsequently, in 2003, they also secured the franchise for Del Monte Iced Refreshment.

Fast forward to 2013, R&R Ice Cream, headquartered in Yorkshire, made a significant move by acquiring Frederick Dairies in a transaction valued at £49 million. In line with this deal, Frank and Philip Frederick, the grandsons of the company's founder, will retain their involvement in the Freezeserve cold storage and distribution business located at Simonswood.
Frederick's Dairies History

History of Drumstick ice cream

At the 1904 World’s Fair, an ice cream maker ran out of bowls. He asked a nearby waffle vendor to roll waffles into cones, turning them into a finger food. The ice cream drumstick was invented by Parker Brothers – Bruce, I.C., and J.T. of the Drumstick Company of Fort Worth, Texas, in 1928 by adding chocolate coating topped with nuts. The Parkers wanted to provide prepackaged ice cream cones but found that the cones became too soggy before they could be shipped to sellers.

To solve their problem, they reached out to Ohio State food scientists who quickly came up with the idea of coating the cone in chocolate. Jewel (wife of I.C Parker) said that this invention looked like a chicken leg, so the brothers called it a “Drumstick.”

Subsequent innovations included adding the chocolate to the inside rather than the outside of the cone. In 1991 multinational company, Nestlé made 31 acquisitions. Among the companies purchased were Alco Drumstick, a U.S. ice cream manufacturer with many European activities.

In 2016, Nestlé and PAI Partners established Froneri, a joint venture to combine the two companies' ice cream activities. The Drumstick name is owned by Froneri and the product is sold under the Nestlé brand in the US. There have been many variations on the original format of vanilla ice cream in a choc-lined waffle cone, with a chocolate and nut topping.
History of Drumstick ice cream

History of Froneri: The largest producer of ice cream in Europe

From its small beginnings, in 1932, an enterprising young Italian lady, Regina Roncadin, opened her first ice cream parlor in Osnabrϋck, Germany.

Her nephew, Eduardo, established Roncadin’s first chain of ice cream parlors across Germany around 1970’s. Success motivated him, in 1982, to go into production, together with his brothers Renzo and Siro.

In Yorkshire, England, farmer Jonathan Ropner and businessman James Lambert co-acquired Cardosi, a local ice cream manufacturer and Richmond Ice Cream was born. Richmond Ice Cream is established in 1985.

In 2006, venture capitalists, Oaktree Capital Management purchased Richmond Foods to merge with Roncadin. The result was R&R Ice Cream - a business with the potential to be not only the largest private label ice cream group in Europe but also the most profitable. The R&R stands for Richmond & Roncadin.

In 2001, R&R acquired the Nestlé ice cream business and, as well as old Lyons Maid brands like Fab and Mivvi, has introduced ice creams based on Smarties, Aero, Rowntree’s and Lion Bar.

In April 2013, R&R was acquired by the French private equity firm PAI Partners for £715 million. In 2016, Nestlé and PAI Partners agreed to set up a joint venture known as Froneri which to combine the two companies' ice cream activities, dealing exclusively with the production and distribution of ice cream.

In 2019, Froneri purchased Nestle USA’s ice cream brands, which include Dreyer’s, Haagen-Dazs, Edy’s, etc. Froneri has a turnover of £750 million, and employs 3,000 people. The main production site is located at Leeming Bar, and employs 665 people in the largest ice cream factory in Europe
History of Froneri: The largest producer of ice cream in Europe

History of Klondike bar

Klondike bar consists of a vanilla ice cream square encased in a layer of chocolate on the outside.It was invented in about 1922 by the Isaly family, who owned the Mansfield Pure Milk Company in Mansfield, Ohio.

William Isaly created a thick, square slab of vanilla ice cream covered in Swiss chocolate, and his ice cream novelty became enormously successful under the trademark name of Klondike bra.

It’s named after the Klondike River of Yukon, in the Canadian Yukon Territory that was made famous by the 1890s gold rush.

Opening their first ice cream parlor at the corner of Mulberry and Fourth they soon expanded to several other parlors in Mansfield and on other cities. At its height of popularity, during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, virtually every town in Ohio and the surrounding states had an Isaly’s store.

In 1993, the Isaly Klondike Company was acquired by Unilever and it was folded into a subsidiary, which also sold Good Humor bars and Breyers ice cream.
History of Klondike bar 

Business history of Häagen-Dazs

In the early 1920s, Reuben Mattus, at the age 17, was working for his mother, small-scale New York ice cream proprietor.

In 1961, he formed a company and turned his attention to creating a luxury ice cream using only fresh cream, real fruit and natural ingredients.

Mattus mixed very little air into his ice cream, and to give it a rich taste it was made with high butterfat content.

He just made three flavors, vanilla, chocolate and coffee. In a twist of marketing genius he decided to give his product a Scandinavian-sounding name Häagen-Dazs. By the early 1970s, Häagen-Dazs was being distributed in supermarkets throughout the country.

Mattus started small, and jealously guarded the ‘family business’ image. The firm prospered and spawned imitators. In1976, Reuben’s daughter opened the first independent Häagen-Dazs store and it was an immediate successes.

In 1982 Häagen-Dazs began selling its ice cream abroad in countries ranging from Japan to Germany.

At its peak in 1982, Häagen-Dazs sold sixty-five million pints a year and was worth $115 million before it was sold to the Pillsbury Corporation in 1983. The company introduced an ice-cream bar in 1986, frozen yoghurt in 1991 and sorbet in 1993.

Häagen-Dazs brand is owned worldwide by General Mills. In the United States and Canada only Häagen-Dazs is marketed by Nestlé.
Business history of Häagen-Dazs

Wall’s ice cream

In 1919, Sausage maker Thomas Wall purchased Friars Place House in Acton, London and its ground for a factory making sausages.  He concerned about the cost of having to run his factory during the summer-off season, diversified into ice cream.

In 1922, ice cream manufacturing began at the factory to make use of the spare capacity in the summer.

Ice cream was sold from tricycles, and the phrase ‘Stop me and buy one’ became very familiar to ice cream consumers. Following of Wall’s invention of the tricycles the mass production of ice cream made it the first frozen food to enter working-class diet.

Wall’s became part of Unilever in 1929. Wall’s began to supply refrigerators on hire to cinemas and sweet shops, by 1939, they supplied 15,000 shops and had a turnover or about £1.5 m.

For home consumption, the firm operated 8,500 tricycles on the streets and had 136 depots all over the country to supply them.

Wall’s then became the largest ice-cream manufacturer in the world, as it still is today, after company’s expansion into markets in Western Europe and North America.
Wall’s ice cream

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