Häagen-Dazs

Reuben Mattus, a high-school dropout, emigrated from Poland to New York City and worked with his mother, who sold fruit ices and ice cream pops from a horsedrawn cart in the Bronx before World War II. The family business began manufacturing ice cream and distributing it to grocery stores. It prospered through the Depression and World War II. By the 1950s, large ice cream makers, such as Breyers and Borden, undersold small local producers so severely that supermarkets switched to the national brands. Mattus felt that large manufacturers were compromising their products’ quality to reduce the price; he saw a niche for ultra-rich, top-quality ice cream and hoped that there would be customers willing to pay more for it.