Reuben and Rose Mattus were

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

entrepreneurs who founded the

Häagen-Dazs Häagen-Dazs ( , ) is an American ice cream brand, established by Reuben and Rose Mattus in The Bronx, New York, in 1960. Starting with only three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee, the company opened its first retail store in Brooklyn, Ne ...

ice cream business in the United States.

Biography

Reuben Mattus

Reuben Mattus (December 25, 1912 – January 27, 1994) was born in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

parents. He arrived at the Port of New York on the SS ''Vestris'' with his widowed mother Lea on March 5, 1921, several months before Rose Vesel. He started in the ice cream business as a child of 10, joining his uncle who was in the Italian lemon-ice business in Brooklyn, helping his mother squeeze lemons for the ices.Jews of the Week: Rose and Reuben Mattus
/ref> 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, selling them from a horse-drawn wagon in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

Rose Mattus (née Vesel)

Rose Vesel Mattus (November 23, 1916 – November 28, 2006) was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

as Rose Vesel to

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish parents who had emigrated from

. They made theatrical costumes and briefly moved to

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

with a theatre company and emigrated to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

as steerage passengers on board the in October 1921 when Rose was five years old.

Reuben and Rose Mattus

Reuben and Rose met in Brownsville,

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. After finishing high school, Rose went to work as a bookkeeper at the Senator plant in 1934, and the two married in 1936. The Senator Frozen Products company was profitable, but by the 1950s the large mass-producers of ice cream started a

price war A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the c ...

leading to their decision to make a heavy kind of high-end ice cream. Reuben consulted some books and started to make a new heavy kind of ice cream. In 1959, they decided to form a new ice cream company with a foreign-sounding name. The name chosen was the Danish-sounding 'Häagen-Dazs' as a tribute to Denmark's exemplary treatment of its Jews during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, adding an umlaut which does not exist in Danish, and even put a map of Denmark on the carton. From its launch in 1961, the ice cream was made using cream and natural ingredients for the flavorings, in contrast with competing brands which used often artificial ingredients, starting with three simple flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee.60 Years After Its Founding, Häagen Dazs Remains A Beloved Treat
/ref> Their ice cream was high in

butterfat Butterfat or milkfat is the fatty portion of milk. Milk and cream are often sold according to the amount of butterfat they contain. Composition Butterfat is mainly composed of triglycerides. Each triglyceride contains three fatty acids. Butt ...

and had less air, which, according to Rose Mattus' autobiography, was the result of a factory accident, when the air injection pump broke. Reuben developed the flavors and Rose marketed the product. Her first marketing ploy was to dress up elegantly – in keeping with the upmarket positioning of the brand – and give away free samples at local grocers. Another part of her strategy was to market the brand to university students, and she made certain that ice cream parlors near

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

carried Häagen-Dazs, as well as upscale restaurants. The brand, which grew only slowly through the 1960s, was at first distributed nationally by

Greyhound Bus Greyhound Lines, Inc. (commonly known as simply Greyhound) operates the largest intercity bus service in North America, including Greyhound Mexico. It also operates charter bus services, Amtrak Thruway services, commuter bus services, and p ...

deliveries to college towns. In 1966, Häagen-Dazs launched its fourth flavor, strawberry, a flavor that took them 6 years to develop.Our history
/ref> By 1973, it was sold throughout the United States, and in 1976 the first Häagen-Dazs store was opened in Brooklyn by their daughter Doris. The business was sold to the Pillsbury Company in 1983 for $70 million. The Mattuses were kept on as consultants after the sale until Pillsbury was bought by

Grand Metropolitan Grand Metropolitan plc was a leisure, manufacturing and property conglomerate headquartered in England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it merged with Guinness plc to form ...

and their contract was not renewed;ICE CREAM KING TAKES ANOTHER DIP

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

Häagen-Dazs is now owned by General Mills. After this, they launched the Mattus Ice Cream Company in 1992, this time specializing in low-fat products, calling them Mattus' Lowfat Ice Cream, a

premium Premium may refer to: Marketing * Premium (marketing), a promotional item that can be received for a small fee when redeeming proofs of purchase that come with or on retail products * Premium segment, high-price brands or services in marketing, ...

line of low-fat ice cream. Mattus' Lowfat Ice Cream was named one of the "Ten Best Products of 1993" by

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...

Personal life

The Mattuses lived in

Cresskill, New Jersey Cresskill is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 8,573,American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

Activism

Rose Mattus sat on the board of the

Zionist Organization of America The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) () is an American non-profit pro-Israel organization. Founded in 1897, as the Federation of American Zionists, it was the first official Zionist organization in the United States. Early in the 20th centur ...

. The couple was known for their support of Rabbi

Meir Kahane Meir David HaKohen Kahane (; he, רבי מאיר דוד הכהן כהנא ; born Martin David Kahane; August 1, 1932 – November 5, 1990) was an American-born Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who serve ...

, founder of the

Jewish Defense League The Jewish Defense League (JDL) is a Jewish far-right religious-political organization in the United States and Canada, whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary". It has been classified as "a right w ...

and the Kach party. They were known for their support of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, founding a school of high technology in

Herzliya Herzliya ( ; he, הֶרְצְלִיָּה ; ar, هرتسليا, Hirtsiliyā) is an affluent city in the central coast of Israel, at the northern part of the Tel Aviv District, known for its robust start-up and entrepreneurial culture. In it h ...

which bears their name, and supporting the

Israeli settlements Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

Death

Reuben Mattus died on January 30, 1994, after suffering a heart attack.OBITUARY
/ref> Rose Mattus died in

Westwood, New Jersey Westwood (known as "The Hub of the Pascack Valley") is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 10,908,Rose Mattus

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...