One of the most highly-regarded premium ice cream brands is the dense, preservative-free Häagen-Dazs. The Danish-sounding name suggests that it originated in well, duh, Denmark. However, the brand in fact was developed in 1961 by Reuben Mattus in Bronx, New York. Mattus wanted to pay tribute to the fact that Danes, for the most part, protected their Jewish population as much as possible during World War II. He also believed that Americans associate Denmark with cows and fine dairy products.
Consequently, Mattus sat around thinking of nonsensical words until he came up with something that sounded really Danish--i.e. "Häagen-Dazs"--yet was also unique. The phrase does not mean anything when literally translated. In fact, the Danish language does not even use an umlaut "a" nor the digraph "zs." To further emphasize the Danishness of the ice cream, the earliest cartons had an outline map of Denmark printed on them.
In 1980, Häagen-Dazs sued Frusen Glädjé, a competing ice cream company because it also used a Scandinavian-sounding name--although in this case, the name had a literal translation in Swedish (although sans accent mark)--"frozen delight." Häagen-Dazs lost.
In 1983, Pillsbury purchased Häagen-Dazs, and the brand Häagen-Dazs is now owned by General Mills and is licensed, in the United States and Canada, to Nestlé and its subsidiary Dreyer's.
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