Jump to content

Breyers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Bryers or Dreyer's.
This article is about the ice cream brand. For the brand of model horses, see Breyer Animal Creations. For the singular for the plural, see Breyer (disambiguation).
Brand logo
Product typeFrozen dessert
OwnerUnilever
CountryUnited States
Introduced1866; 158 years ago (1866)
Previous ownersKraft Foods Inc.
Websitebreyers.com

Breyers is a frozen dessert and ice cream brand owned and managed since 1993 by the British conglomerate, Unilever.[1] The company is based in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Among the ten best-selling ice cream brands worldwide, Breyers is part of Unilever's ice cream business group, which includes Ben & Jerry's, Wall's, and Magnum.[2] Breyers is the oldest American ice cream company.[3] In 2022 with sales of $498 million, it was the fourth-leading ice cream brand in the United States.[4]

Founded in 1866 by William Breyer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Breyers produced one million gallons of ice cream annually in the 1920s.[1] The company was sold to the National Dairy Products Corporation in 1926, then to Kraft Foods, and later to Unilever, which merged it with Good Humor to form the Good Humor-Breyers division of the Unilever ice cream group.[1] Due to declining sales in 2023, Unilever announced plans to sell its ice cream businesses, including Breyers, by the end of 2025.[2]

Breyers manufactures ice cream and frozen dairy dessert products.[1][5] The company groups its dozens of products in three flavor categories according to classic ingredients, specialty diets, and candy.[6]

In 2013, Breyers introduced frozen desserts made with food additives that were intended to create smooth, low-calorie products.[1][5] However, the new desserts evoked complaints by consumers who were accustomed to the traditional "all-natural" Breyers ice cream.[1][5][7]

History

[edit]
Breyer ice cream truck, c. 1915

In 1866, William A. Breyer began to produce and sell iced cream in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, first from his home, and later via horse and wagon on the streets.[8] Breyer's son Henry incorporated the business in 1908. The formerly independent Breyer Ice Cream Company was sold to the National Dairy Products Corporation/Sealtest in 1926.[9] National Dairy then changed its name to Kraftco in 1968, and Kraft by 1975. Kraft sold its ice cream brands to Unilever in 1993, while retaining the rights to the name for yogurt products.[10]

Ice cream

[edit]

Prior to 2006,[11] Breyers was known for producing ice cream with a small number of all-natural ingredients. In recent years,[when?] Unilever has reformulated many of its flavors with nontraditional, additive ingredients, significantly changing the taste and texture of their desserts as a result.[11] Following similar practices by several of their competitors,[11] Breyers' list of ingredients has expanded to include thickeners, low-cost sweeteners, food coloring and low-cost additives — including natural additives such as tara gum[12] and carob bean gum;[13] artificial additives such as maltodextrin and propylene glycol;[14] and common artificially separated and extracted ingredients such as corn syrup, whey, and others.[13][14]

One result of these cost-cutting practices has been that many (but not all) of Breyers' products no longer contain enough milk and cream to meet labeling requirements for ice cream, and are now labeled "Frozen Dairy Dessert" in the United States[15] and "Frozen Dessert" in Canada.[16][17]

For several decades[when?] over 30% of Breyers products, including most of its products sold in the Northeastern U.S., were produced in a large plant outside Boston, in Framingham, Massachusetts. As part of cost-cutting by Unilever, the plant was closed in March 2011.[18]

Confusion with Dreyer's

[edit]

In the Western U.S. and Texas,[19] Breyers ice cream is sometimes confused with Dreyer's ice cream.[20] Henry Breyer founded Breyers in 1908 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while William Dreyer and Joseph Edy co-founded Edy's Grand Ice Cream in 1928 in Oakland, California. The root of the confusion dates to 1953, when "Edy's Grand Ice Cream" was changed to "Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream". Seeking to eliminate the confusion this created, Dreyer's changed its brand name in the home market of Breyers from "Dreyer's Grand" back to "Edy's Grand" in 1981.[21] Around that same time Breyers had begun an expansion toward the West Coast—the home market of Dreyer's—and by the mid-1980s was distributing ice cream throughout the western U.S. and Texas.[22] Unlike Dreyer's, Breyers kept its brand name nationally, and as a result, both Breyers and Dreyer's can be found on store shelves in the western U.S. and Texas.[19][22]

Yogurt

[edit]

Breyers Yogurt was a brand of yogurt, owned by Kraft Foods then by CoolBrands International, a former Canadian frozen foods manufacturer. After CoolBrands ran into financial trouble, it was sold in 2007 to Healthy Food Holdings, an affiliate of Catterton Partners, a private equity firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut.[23]

The yogurt was manufactured under license from Unilever at an upstate New York facility until the licensing agreement was terminated and the Breyers Yogurt line was discontinued in April 2011.[24] Catterton continued to produce YoCrunch yogurt but without the Breyers co-branding until it sold the company in August 2013 to Group Danone.[25][26]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f Riddle, Holly (2 February 2023). "The Untold Truth Of Breyers". Mashed. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  2. ^ a b Ziady, Hanna (19 March 2024). "Ben & Jerry's and Magnum will form the core of an $8 billion ice cream company". CNN. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  3. ^ Braun Davison, Candace (9 August 2016). "11 Things You Should Know Before Buying Breyers Ice Cream". Delish. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  4. ^ Berk, Brian (22 November 2022). "2022 State of the Industry: Ice cream category sees bright future ahead". Dairy Foods. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
  5. ^ a b c Demas, Alex (21 May 2024). "Claims That Breyers Doesn't Sell 'Real' Ice Cream Are False". The Dispatch. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
  6. ^ "Breyers: All Flavors". Breyers. 2024. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  7. ^ Barry, Dan (15 April 2013). "Ice Cream's Identity Crisis". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  8. ^ Amy Ettinger (27 June 2017). Sweet Spot: An Ice Cream Binge Across America. Penguin Publishing Group. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-101-98420-8.
  9. ^ Ivey, Dave. "Ice Cream Factory Closing After 128 Years; 240 Jobs Melting Away". AP NEWS. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  10. ^ "History of Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream Company". Fundinguniverse.com. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  11. ^ a b c "Tara Gum and Bryers Natural Ice Cream: Unilever's Response — A Daily Scoop: Ice Cream Reviews". Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 3 July 2008.
  12. ^ "Breyers - Natural Vanilla". Breyers.com. Archived from the original on 30 April 2018. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  13. ^ a b "Extra Creamy Vanilla". Breyers.com. Archived from the original on 30 April 2018. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  14. ^ a b "OREO® Cookies & Cream Chocolate". Archived from the original on 14 April 2013. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  15. ^ "What Happened to Breyer's Ice Cream - Beach Street News". Beachstrretnews.com. 22 March 2012. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  16. ^ Dana Flavelle (14 July 2011). "Can you tell the difference between ice cream and frozen dessert?". The Star. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  17. ^ "Comm-oddities: I scream for ice cream". Archived from the original on 6 June 2009. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
  18. ^ "Breyers' Framingham facility closes its doors". Metrowestdailynews.com. 1 April 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2018.[dead link‍]
  19. ^ a b "Ice Cream". IceCream.com. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  20. ^ Gellene, Denise (19 June 1986). "East vs. West in Ice Cream Fight : Breyers' Attempt to Scoop Dreyer's Breeds Confusion". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 June 2021.
  21. ^ Paul B. Brown & Steve Kichen: "The Class of 1983: Breaking the Barriers," Forbes, November 7, 1983, p.168
  22. ^ a b Roderick Royall: "Ice Cream Wars," Baltimore Business Journal, April 28, 1986, p.1
  23. ^ "Healthy Food Holdings to Acquire Breyers(R) Yogurt Business -- re> BOULDER, Colo., Jan. 2 /PRNewswire/ --". Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
  24. ^ North Lawrence Dairy Done Archived 2011-01-27 at the Wayback Machine, Watertown Daily Times, January 18, 2011
  25. ^ "Danone acquires YoCrunch, a mix-in toppings specialist, to support continued yogurt growth in the USA". Finance.danone.com. August 2013. Archived from the original on 12 April 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  26. ^ "Danone Buys YoCrunch Yogurt-Topping Maker to Grow in U.S." Bloomberg.com. August 2013.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breyers&oldid=1258350853"