Breyers

Not to be confused with Dreyer's.

Breyers

Breyers Logo
Owner	Unilever
Country	United States
Markets	United States
Website	http://www.breyers.com/

Breyers Ice Cream is a brand of ice cream owned by Unilever (part of their United States Good Humor-Breyers unit). They have a large plant in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, outside Boston.

For years Breyers was known for its short, all-natural ingredients list. This featured prominently in an advertising campaign where a child would attempt to read the ingredients from another brand, experiencing extreme difficulty pronouncing the artificial additives. He then turned to the Breyers list and quickly rattled off the four ingredients (in their vanilla at the time): milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. In recent years, as part of cost cutting measures since the acquisition by Unilever, the list has expanded to include Tara gum. Also, the carton size has shrunk from the classic half-gallon to one-and-a-half quarts.

History

Breyer's was founded by William Breyer, grandfather of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Stephen Breyer. The formerly independent Breyer Ice Cream Company was sold to the National Dairy Products Corporation in 1926; National Dairy changed its name to Kraft in 1969. Kraft sold its ice cream brands to Unilever in 1993, while retaining the rights to the name for yogurt products.

Confusion with Dreyer's

Breyers is sometimes confused with Dreyer's, a Nestle brand. While William Breyer founded his ice cream on the east coast, another man, William Dreyer, founded an ice cream company on the west coast. As the two brands increased their reach across the country, a similarity of name issue was inevitable. In 1981, Dreyer’s made the decision not to sell Dreyer’s branded products in the east. In an agreement with Breyers, Dreyer's sought to market its product east of the Rocky Mountains under the "Edy's Grand" name. However, Breyers made no similar reciprocal agreement, and by the mid-1980s began to distribute Breyers ice cream to states throughout the midwestern and western United States. As a result, both Breyers and Dreyer's can be found on grocery shelves in western states.

Breyers Yogurt

Breyers Yogurt is a brand of yogurt, owned previously by Kraft Foods then by CoolBrands International, a Canadian company, and it has been recently sold by them to Lily Acquisition LLC, an affiliate of Catterton Partners, a private equity firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut. The yogurt is manufactured under a Unilever license at an upstate New York facility.

Breyers Yogurt has recently introduced the Breyers Inspirations line, which is inspired by the same brand names' ice cream flavor profile. On the shelves currently are Strawberry, Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, and Mint Chocolate chip. Breyers Yogurt also currently produces 13 different flavors of Light 6 ounce product, 10 different flavors of Fruit on the Bottom 6 ounce product, 5 flavors of Creme Savers 6 ounce product, and 3 Smooth and Creamy 6 ounce flavors. Also, they produce 10 different combinations of flavors in a 4 ounce 6 pack.

Canada

Breyers is also available in Canada, where the product is sold in 1.89-L (half-gallon) containers. Some are marketed as a "frozen dessert" instead of ice cream, since certain products are made with hydrogenated vegetable oils and modified milk ingredients rather than milk.

Product lines

Breyers has a variety of different product lines including:

→ All Natural- Uses all-natural ingredients derived from natural sources, however, not as natural as they used to be (for example, 'Chocolate Flavored Chips' and the addition of Tara Gum as a stabilizer to promote a creaminess for cost-cutting measures).
→ Smooth & Dreamy- Uses all natural ingredients with half the fat and fewer calories than regular ice cream."
→ Double Churn Fat Free- Fat-free Ice Cream
→ Double Churn No Sugar Added- Creamy ice cream with no sugar added.
→ Carb Smart- A low-carb ice cream product with 4 grams of net carbs per 1/2-cup serving.

Cost Cutting

Although promoting itself as a 'natural ice cream' in the past; like some of their competitors, many Breyers flavors have recently been reformulated with cheaper nontraditional ingredients. These changes include the addition of tara gum and replacement of real cream with skim milk. As these products now consist mainly of milk and skim milk rather than milk and cream they can no longer legally be called 'ice cream' and are instead labeled as 'frozen dairy dessert'

External links

• Breyers.com Official web site
• [1]Good-Humor Breyers corporate website
• adailyscoop.com Breyers Natural Ice Cream and Tara Gum: Unilever’s Response