Page 21 - TORCH Magazine - Issue #20

the ice creams, whilst Rose handled
the marketing. Incredibly, without Rose buying any advertising, in the early 1970s Häagen-Dazs was the only premium ice cream brand in America with national distribution. This was because of her strategy of providing samples directly to the people of influence and selling to them face to face.
Häagen-Dazs was one of the first companies to display their ingredients on the outside of their packaging,
as Reuben was proud of the natural ingredients contained in his product. Unlike most ice creams at the time, which were made with artificial flavouring and powdered milk, Häagen- Dazs was made with real cream, milk, and whole egg yolks, and their flavourings were also made with natural ingredients.
There were only three flavours to
begin with: vanilla, chocolate and
coffee. The vanilla beans originated from Madagascar, the chocolate from Belgium, and coffee from Colombia. It would take Rueben six years of experimenting to develop their fourth flavour, strawberry, which again contained real fruit. At one point they were said to be buying entire valleys of strawberries in Oregon to ensure they could supply real fruit to every pot. They created many more flavours as time went on.
The company’s hallmark thick ice cream was created by accident. One day, the machine that pumped air into the product broke, resulting in a thick, dense ice cream that they thought was a ruined batch. When they tasted the product, however, they found it was an improvement on the flavour, and as a result they never added air to their ice cream from that point forward.
A good quality product was important to Reuben, but he also made sure his ice cream was kosher so the Jewish community could enjoy it. “If I made good ice cream,
I wanted my people to get it, so I made it kosher,” Rueben said.
The couple made Häagen-Dazs a success and sold the company in 1983. They stayed on as advisers for several years. Being in
the ice cream business resulted in them amassing a fortune that they generously
Rose Mattus, Co-creator of Häagen-Dazs
used to support causes close to their hearts, particularly ones involving the Jewish community and Israel.
They donated large sums to organisations helping Jews make Aliyah from Europe and Asia back to Israel. And they funded the building of a technology school in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, among many other generous acts to support their people. Reuben died in 1994 and Rose lived until 2006. It was following Reuben’s death that Rose became good friends with Israeli Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, hosting each of them in her New York apartment. She also sat on the board of the Zionist Organisation of America.
Rose and Rueben were outspoken in their support for Israel and believed that Israeli sovereignty included Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) and, of course, Jerusalem. They were proud Jews who believed in the Biblical truth that God had given the land of Israel to the Jewish people. They also made fantastic ice cream.
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