 | |
| Product type | Dairy products |
|---|---|
| Owner | |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 1940 |
| Markets | United States (Asheville, NC) Canada |
| Previous owners | Kraft |
| Website | Sealtest.ca |
Sealtest Dairy is a Good Humor-Breyers brand for dairy products. Formerly a division of National Dairy Products Corporation (precursor to Kraft Foods) of Delaware, it produced milk, cream, ice cream, and lemonade. The Sealtest brand was also later used by various companies in Canada under license (now held by Agropur).
Sealtest had milk and ice cream plants across the midwestern and northeastern part of the United States, with large operations in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Huntington, Indiana, Rockford, Illinois, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York City. Its Mid-South operations were based in Nashville.[ citation needed ]
The Milwaukee operation was purchased from a family-owned dairy operation, Luick Dairy, in the late 1940s or after. The Sealtest brand was originally a franchise, much like the 'Quality Chekd' dairy brand - local milk bottlers bought the rights to the Sealtest name in their market areas. Luick and presumably all the other franchisees were bought up by National Dairy Co.[ citation needed ]
Sealtest Dairy Company was founded and operated by Vernon F. Hovey. After his death, the company was turned over to his two sons. They ran the business in the state of New York, before selling the business.[ citation needed ]
Sealtest was one of the brands Martin Luther King Jr. urged people to boycott in the last speech he delivered before his assassination, "I've Been to the Mountaintop":
Go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk.
The Sealtest brand was ultimately acquired from Kraft (along with Breyers) in 1993 by Unilever, which retains the underlying rights to the brand. [1] [2] Sealtest milk products are currently produced and packaged by Milkco, Inc. of Asheville, North Carolina, a subsidiary of Ingles. [3] The brand name is licensed from the Good Humor-Breyers subsidiary of Unilever. All Sealtest ice cream products have been discontinued. [4]
Sealtest also sponsored an ice cream store at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida named Sealtest Ice Cream Parlor and Sealtest Ice Cream Wagon. [5]
In Canada, the Sealtest brand name arrived in 1961 when Dominion Dairies Limited came under the control of National Dairy Products (later Kraft). [6] In 1981, Ault Foods of Toronto, Ontario acquired Dominion Dairies, and with it the licensing rights to the Sealtest brand name. At the time, the Sealtest name was used on dairy products including milk and the Parlour brand of ice cream, primarily in Ontario and Quebec. The Sealtest plant in Toronto took over operations of Silverwood Dairy, another local dairy, in the 1980s.
Ault was broken up in 1996 and 1997, with rights to ice cream products including the Sealtest Parlour line being acquired by Nestlé, Ontario fluid milk products purchased by Agropur (and ultimately absorbed into its Natrel division), and the remainder of the company (including Quebec fluid milk products) acquired by Parmalat. [7]
Black Diamond Cheese Limited is a cheese manufacturing company in Canada.
A Klondike bar is a Good Humor-Breyers ice cream novelty consisting of a square of ice cream coated with a thin layer of chocolate.
Häagen-Dazs is an American ice cream brand, established by Reuben and Rose Mattus in The Bronx, New York, in 1960. Starting with only three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee, the company opened its first retail store in Brooklyn, New York, on November 15, 1976. The Pillsbury food conglomerate bought Häagen-Dazs in 1983, and now the brand is sold worldwide, as cartons, ice cream bars, ice cream cakes, sorbet, frozen yogurt, and gelato.
Breyers is a brand of ice cream started in 1866 by William A. Breyer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Beatrice Foods Company was a major American food processing company founded in 1894. Over the years, Beatrice owned many well-known brands such as Tropicana, Dannon, Krispy Kreme, Jolly Rancher, Orville Redenbacher's, Swiss Miss, Peter Pan, Martha White, Playtex, La Choy, Samsonite and Avis Car Rental.
Selecta is a Filipino dairy products brand owned by RFM Corporation. Its milk business is operated by RFM Corporation, while its ice cream business is operated under a joint-venture with Unilever Philippines, Inc., and serves as the Philippine branch of Unilever's Heartbrand line of ice cream.
Kraft Foods Inc. was a multinational confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It marketed many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earned more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oreo, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, and Tang. Forty of its brands were at least a century old.
Good Humor-Breyers is the American ice cream division of Unilever and includes the formerly independent Good Humor, Breyers, Klondike, Popsicle, Dickie Dee and Sealtest brands. Based in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey it was formed in 1993 after Unilever purchased the ice cream division of Kraft General Foods.
William Neilson Dairy Limited is a Canadian dairy company owned by Saputo Inc. The company is based in Toronto, Ontario. In the United States, its products are sold under the name Neilson.
Ault Foods Limited was a Toronto-based dairy processor and Canada's largest dairy company acquiring other dairy companies across Canada. The company was established around 1926. Ault sold off parts of their business in the mid-1990s; milk division was sold to Agropur. Ault itself was acquired by Parmalat in 1997 and the name ceased to exist.
Beatrice Foods Canada Ltd. is a dairy unit of Lactalis Canada based in Toronto. The Canadian unit of Beatrice Foods was founded in 1969 and separated from its American parent firm, Beatrice Foods in 1978. The Beatrice trademark in Canada is owned by Lactalis Canada.
Silverwood Dairy was a London, Ontario, Canada, dairy company that operated in the early 20th century and was later acquired as a brand name by Ault Foods.
Borden, Inc., was an American producer of food and beverage products, consumer products, and industrial products. At one time, the company was the largest U.S. producer of dairy and pasta products. Its food division, Borden Foods, was based in Columbus, Ohio, and focused primarily on pasta and pasta sauces, bakery products, snacks, processed cheese, jams and jellies, and ice cream. It was best known for its Borden Ice Cream, Meadow Gold milk, Creamette pasta, and Borden Condensed Milk brands. Its consumer products and industrial segment marketed wallpaper, adhesives, plastics and resins. By 1993, sales of food products accounted for 67 percent of its revenue. It was also known for its Elmer's and Krazy Glue brands.
Ultima Foods Inc. is a Canadian manufacturer and marketer of yogurt and fresh dairy products. Founded in 1993, Ultima Foods is owned by Lactalis. In 2017, the company had 660 employees across the country and annual sales in excess of CA$300 million.
Choco Taco was a Good Humor-Breyers ice cream novelty resembling a taco. It consisted of a disk of waffle cone material folded to resemble a hard taco shell, reduced-fat vanilla ice cream, artificially flavored fudge, peanuts, and a milk chocolate coating. The "Choco Taco" was marketed under the Klondike brand as "The Original Ice Cream Taco".
Mövenpick Ice Cream is a brand of ice cream of Swiss origin produced initially by Nestlé. Since 2016, Froneri - a joint venture between Nestlé and R&R Ice Cream - manufactures it.
Parlour is a brand of frozen dessert currently produced by Nestlé. Parlour comes in many different flavours and is available mainly in Canada. Originally produced by Sealtest Ice Cream Parlor in the United States as an ice cream, it no longer meets the legal definition of ice cream due to a change in the recipe; the high content of palm oils. Parlour now competes with bigger brands of ice cream such as: Chapman's, Breyers and others.
Dairyland is a dairy business that operates in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. Now owned by Saputo Dairy Foods Canada, Dairyland was originally an operating arm of BC dairy farmers' cooperatives and was legally named Agrifoods International Cooperative Ltd. at the time of the sale of the majority of its assets to Saputo Incorporated. Its products are sold across Canada.
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