America loves her ice cream
Emailed on December 13th 2019 in The Friday Forward
This week Nestlé agreed to sell its U.S. ice cream business for $4 billion to Froneri, a joint venture Nestlé formed in 2016 with private equity firm PAI Partners.
Froneri is America's second-largest ice cream group, but it's been losing market share to leader Unilever. Nestlé's plan is to follow the growth model it successfully used in Europe, under similar circumstances, whereby it merged operations with PAI-owned R&R Group to create Froneri.
Brands included in the deal are Häagen-Dazs, Drumstick, Edy’s, Dreyer’s, Outshine, and Skinny Cow.
A few ice cream facts for your Friday:
Americans eat more ice cream per capita than any other people in the world
The most popular flavor in the US is vanilla
Chocolate flavor came before vanilla
California is the country’s top ice cream producer, which makes sense if you know it’s also the top dairy producer in the country.
Some historians credit Marco Polo with being the first one to bring some type of ice cream to Europe. He had learned it from the Chinese, who had flavored snow with rice and milk to make a creamy dessert.