GB Glace

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"GB-gubben", the company mascot

GB Glace (originally Glace-Bolaget until 1991) is the largest ice cream company in Sweden. It was founded in 1942, and is since 1996 owned by the Anglo-Dutch company Unilever. Besides its own traditional brands, it produces many of the same ice cream brands as other Unilever subsidiaries, such as Langnese in Germany.

The company was formed when Mjölkcentralen (which later became Arla) and Choklad-Thule (Stockholms first ice-cream company) purchased Alaska Glace, creating a new company called Glace bolaget.

1 Nogger Black controversy
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Nogger Black controversy

In 2005, the Swedish company was criticized by the Centre against Racism and Related Intolerance after launching an advertising campaign introducing their new line of ice cream bars, the Nogger Black, which is an addition to their existing "Nogger" ice cream product. The original Nogger is a vanilla ice cream bar with a nougat filling and chocolate shell, where the Nogger Black substitutes toffee in lieu of the nougat center and encases the bar in a salty black licorice outer shell rather than chocolate, hence the name Nogger Black. Petronella Warg, GB Glace's information officer, reported that the first Nogger ice cream bar had been marketed since 1979, its name derived from the nougat filling.

Nogger ice cream bars and the 88

The criticism was mainly aimed at an advert where the slogan "Nogger + liquorice = true" was written in white chalk on asphalt. Stig Wallin - chairman of the centre - read the slogan as "Nigger + liquorice" and said "It's impossible not to see this as an allusion to racism." The centre urged for a boycott of the company if they did not withdraw the campaign. Slate writer Timothy Noah also criticized the product.[1]

Some Swedes made a parody in the form of an advertisement for a fictional GB ice cream, called the Kokoskon (coconut cone), highlighting the K letters and drawing black eyeholes in the middle of the white, cone-shaped ice cream, making it look like the hat part of a Ku Klux Klan costume[2].

Also, the name of another GB ice cream, 88:an ("The 88"), is similar to 88, a codename for "Heil Hitler" used in neo-nazi circles (HH, as "H" is the 8th letter of the Latin alphabet). This product has, however, been on the market since the 1960s long before the Nazi usage of 88 started.

Salty black licorice treats are a favorite amongst those from the Nordic region. See also: Salmiakki.