Breyers

Ice cream brand

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 type| Frozen dessert
Owner| Unilever
Country| United States
Introduced| 1866; 158 years ago (1866)
Previous owners| Kraft Foods Inc.
Website| breyers.com

Breyers is a brand of ice cream started in 1866 by William A. Breyer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

## 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]

## Products

[edit]

In 2024, the Breyers frozen dessert products are organized in three categories:[4]

* Classics made with milk and cream with natural colors and flavors,
* Better For You desserts manufactured to be low in calories with lower carbohydrate content and no sugar added for flavor
* Cookies & Candies, which contain pieces of cookies or branded candies.

Generally by choice of ingredients, Breyers manufactures its frozen desserts to be either "original ice cream" or "frozen dairy dessert", both in numerous variations of composition, flavors, and consumer preferences for specialty diets.[4][5][6] Some 60% of Breyers products are ice cream and 40% are frozen dairy desserts.[5]

Examples of ice cream in the Breyers Classics category include "Homemade Vanilla", "Chocolate", and "Cherry Vanilla".[4] Better For You products include those made to be gluten-free, lactose-free, sugar-free, and "Carb Conscious", among others.[4] The Cookies & Candies category has products made with branded ingredients, such as peanut butter, fudge, toffee or cookie pieces.[4]

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ingredient requirements for frozen dessert products are defined in Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations, subchapter B.[7] As detailed in Part 135.110, the FDA regulation for ice cream manufacturing requires the contents of milk fat and total milk solids to not be less than 10% for each component.[7] Breyers original ice cream products in the Classics category contain at least 10% milk fat and total milk solids to meet the regulated ingredient requirements.[5][6] (see Nutrition Facts label for each product).[4]

### Ice cream

[edit]

Breyers ice cream products are made from milk, cream, sugar, tara gum, and flavors derived from natural sources, such as vanilla.[4][6] Since 2016, Breyers has participated in a partnership with the Rainforest Alliance to produce its vanilla flavors from sustainably-sourced vanilla beans.[5][8]

As an example of the composition of Breyers ice cream, the sugar-free vanilla ice cream is 68% water, 22% carbohydrates, 6% fat, and 4% protein.[9] In a reference amount of 100 g (3.5 oz), the Breyers sugar-free ice cream provides 143 calories of food energy.[9]

Vanilla is the best-selling brand of Breyers ice cream, and Breyers sells more vanilla ice cream than competitors in the United States.[5][10]

### Frozen dairy dessert

[edit]

Breyers frozen dairy desserts are manufactured with skim milk, corn syrup (or maltitol syrup), sugar or a sugar substitute, polydextrose, glycerin, and various other ingredients that may include whey, carob bean gum, guar gum, carrageenan, and added micronutrients (label image).[5][11] Breyers frozen dairy dessert products are manufactured specifically to be different from the original ice cream products with the intent to provide a smoother texture, less fat, and lower calories.[5][6]

As an example of composition in a Breyers frozen dairy dessert, the product Birthday Blast is 38% carbohydrates, 7% fat, and 4% protein.[11] In a reference amount of 100 g (3.5 oz), the Breyers Birthday Blast frozen dairy dessert provides 228 calories of food energy.[11]

### Consumer feedback

[edit]

In 2013, Breyers introduced frozen desserts made with food additives (section above) that were intended to create smooth, low-calorie products.[5][6] However, the new desserts evoked complaints by consumers who were accustomed to the traditional "all-natural" Breyers ice cream.[5][6][12]

In a 2022 survey of consumer preferences for ice cream and Better For You frozen dairy desserts, including Breyers products, "all-natural" and a short list mainly of dairy ingredients with natural sweeteners, reduced sugar or no added sugar were the preferred attributes.[13]

## Confusion with Dreyer's

[edit]

In the Western U.S. and Texas,[3] Breyers ice cream is sometimes confused with Dreyer's ice cream.[14] 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.[15] 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.[16] 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.[16]

## 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.[citation needed]

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.[17] Catterton continued to produce YoCrunch yogurt but without the Breyers co-branding until it sold the company in August 2013 to Group Danone.[18][19]

## See also

[edit]

* Food portal
* Philadelphia portal

* Henry West Breyer Sr. House
* List of ice cream brands

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Amy Ettinger (27 June 2017). Sweet Spot: An Ice Cream Binge Across America. Penguin Publishing Group. p. 15\. ISBN 978-1-101-98420-8.
2. ^ Ivey, Dave. "Ice Cream Factory Closing After 128 Years; 240 Jobs Melting Away". AP NEWS. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
3. ^ a b "History of Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream Company". Fundinguniverse.com. Retrieved September 10, 2018.
4. ^ a b c d e f g "Breyers - All Flavors". Breyers. 2024. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Riddle, Holly (2 February 2023). "The Untold Truth Of Breyers". Mashed. Retrieved 2024-11-13.
6. ^ a b c d e f Demas, Alex (21 May 2024). "Claims That Breyers Doesn't Sell 'Real' Ice Cream Are False". The Dispatch. Retrieved 2024-11-10.
7. ^ a b "Frozen desserts, Title 21, Subchapter B, Part 135". Code of Federal Regulations, US Food and Drug Administration. 27 March 1998. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
8. ^ "Breyers: Certification Seal for Vanilla". Rainforest Alliance. 2024. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
9. ^ a b "Breyers ice cream, sugar-free, vanilla per 100 g". FoodData Central, US Department of Agriculture. 1 April 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
10. ^ Braun Davison, Candace (9 August 2016). "11 Things You Should Know Before Buying Breyers Ice Cream". Delish. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
11. ^ a b c "Birthday Blast, Breyers Frozen Dairy Dessert per 100 g". FoodData Central, US Department of Agriculture. 28 October 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
12. ^ Barry, Dan (15 April 2013). "Ice Cream's Identity Crisis". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
13. ^ Sipple LR, Racette CM, Schiano AN, Drake MA (January 2022). "Consumer perception of ice cream and frozen desserts in the "better-for-you" category". Journal of Dairy Science. 105 (1): 154–169. doi:10.3168/jds.2021-21029. PMID 34763919.
14. ^ Gellene, Denise (June 19, 1986). "East vs. West in Ice Cream Fight : Breyers' Attempt to Scoop Dreyer's Breeds Confusion". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 June 2021.
15. ^ Paul B. Brown & Steve Kichen: "The Class of 1983: Breaking the Barriers," Forbes, November 7, 1983, p.168
16. ^ a b "Ice Cream". IceCream.com. Retrieved September 10, 2018.
17. ^ North Lawrence Dairy Done Archived 2011-01-27 at the Wayback Machine, Watertown Daily Times, January 18, 2011
18. ^ "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 2015-04-12. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
19. ^ "Danone Buys YoCrunch Yogurt-Topping Maker to Grow in U.S." Bloomberg.com. August 2013.

## External links

[edit]

* Official website

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