Edy's

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream Holdings, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Foods
Founded	1928
Headquarters	Oakland, California, USA
Key people	Mike Mitchell, CEO
Revenue	$1.588 billion USD (2004)
Number of employees	~10000 (2008)
Parent	Nestlé
Website	www.dreyers.com

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary of Nestlé, is a United States-based producer of ice cream and frozen yogurt founded in 1928 as Edy's Grand Ice Cream in Oakland, California by Joseph Edy and William Dreyer. In 1947 the partnership was dissolved, and in 1953 William Dreyer Jr. took over and changed the name to Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream. In 1963, Junior sold the company to his key officers -- Al Wolff who ran the factory, Bob Boone who ran distribution, and Ken Cook, who managed sales and served as president from 1963 to 1977. Cook's vision was to provide American families with a truly premium ice cream they could enjoy at home. In 1977, with sales of $6 million and an employee base of 75 people, Cook sold the company to T. Gary Rogers and W.F. "Rick" Cronk for $1 million. In 1981 the company expanded and re-adopted the name Edy's Grand Ice Cream when marketing its product east of the Rocky Mountains, so as to not be confused with another company named Breyers (today owned by Unilever). Hence they market under the Dreyer's name in the Western United States and Texas, and under the Edy's name in the Eastern and Midwestern United States.

In 2002, Nestle acquired Dreyer's for $3.2 billion.

The two brand names honor the company's founders: Joseph Edy, a candy maker, and William Dreyer, an ice cream maker. Joseph Edy was born in Missouri and raised in Montana. Joseph Oliver Edy operated a homemade candy and ice cream parlor at 122 North Broadway in Billings, Montana during the 1910s. In the 1920s he and his wife Grace decided to join his brother in California. In 1925 Joseph Edy opened the doors to Edy's Character Candies Shop in Oakland. Edy's high-quality candy quickly became recognized as among the best in the East Bay Area, and Edy was soon operating six shops. William Dreyer also ran a business in the 1920s, an ice cream manufacturing venture in the California dairy country community of Visalia. In 1926 he was recruited to run a large new plant in Oakland for National Ice Cream. While in Oakland, he met Joe Edy.