Frusen Glädjé was a company that made premium
ice cream
Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as Chocolate, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food ...
for the American market, founded in 1980 by Richard E. Smith.
Although the ice cream was made in the U.S., it used a quasi-
Swedish name: (), without the
acute accent
The acute accent (), ,
is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accen ...
, is Swedish for "frozen happiness".
After the brand was sold several times, the brand name is currently no longer in use.
History
Frusen Glädjé was produced at a
Dairy Lea plant with special equipment and sold in 10 states in 1981, including New York and California. Frusen Glädjé was available in eight flavors (15 in the New York shop). Frusen Glädjé was distributed in every state by the end of 1982, reaching an annual production of 30 million pints, up from 18 million in 1981. Erhard Sommer was the company president.
The brand's marketing materials called it "
e ice cream that appeals to the sybaritic buyer with a taste for the very finest."
Television commercials typically featured the catch phrase, "I ate all the Frusen Glädjé." Another catchphrase used was "Enjoy the Guilt", which appeared in print advertising and also on small crystal ice cream bowls, which were available via mail order from the company.
Conflict with Häagen-Dazs
Another American ice cream producer,
Häagen-Dazs
Häagen-Dazs ( , ) is an American ice cream brand, established by Reuben and Rose Mattus in the Bronx, New York, in 1960, owned by Froneri, a joint venture between Nestlé and PAI Partners. Starting with only three flavors: vanilla, chocolat ...
, sued unsuccessfully in 1980 to stop Frusen Glädjé from using a "Scandinavian marketing theme". Häagen-Dazs's complaints included Frusen Glädjé's "prominently displayed list of the product's natural ingredients, a list of artificial ingredients not found in the ice cream, directions for serving and eating the ice cream (essentially that it was best served soft), and a map of Scandinavia". The court ruled against Häagen-Dazs on the grounds of
unclean hands
Clean hands, sometimes called the clean hands doctrine, unclean hands doctrine, or dirty hands doctrine, is an equitable defense in which the defendant argues that the plaintiff is not entitled to obtain an equitable remedy because the plainti ...
, as Häagen-Dazs had similarly marketed itself as Scandinavian (specifically
Danish) without having any real connection to the region.
Acquisition by Kraft Foods
In 1985, Smith sold Frusen Glädjé to
Kraft General Foods. A Kraft spokeswoman states that Kraft sold its Frusen Glädjé license to the
Unilever
Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...
corporation in 1993. A spokesman for Unilever claims that Frusen Glädjé was not part of the deal. The brand has since disappeared, although in 2016 a trademark for "Frusen Glädjé" was filed by Papilion, LLC.
See also
*
Foreign branding
In advertising and marketing, foreign branding is the use of foreign or foreign-sounding brand names for companies, goods, and services to imply they are of foreign origin, generally to make them appear to come from a place that seems attractively ...
References
External links
1987 Frusen Glädjé television commercial YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frusen Gladje
1980 establishments in the United States
Companies established in 1980
Ice cream brands
Kraft Foods brands