Sealtest Dairy

Sealtest Dairy was a division of National Dairy Products Corporation (predecessor to Kraft Foods, Inc.) of Delaware. It produced milk, cream, ice cream, and lemonade. The Sealtest brand was also later used by various companies in Canada under licence (now held by Agropur).

History

Sealtest building in Cleveland in the 1960s.

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.^[1] At one time, the advertising agency on record, Young & Rubicam, wanted to reintroduce the brand as "Now with Natural Vanilla."^{[citation needed]} Consumers responded that they believed the brand to be "all natural" already and the effort to increase brand spending was ended before it went to market^{[citation needed]}.

Sealtest had milk and ice cream plants across the midwestern and northeastern part of the United States, with large operations in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Huntington, Indiana, Rockford, Illinois, and Philadelphia, as well as New York City. Its Mid-South operations were based in Memphis.^{[citation needed]}

The Milwaukee operation was purchased from a family-owned dairy operation, Luick Dairy, in the late 1940s or after.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]} 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.

The Sealtest brand was ultimately acquired from Kraft (along with Breyers) in 1993 by Unilever, which retains the underlying rights to the brand.^[2][3]

Canada

In Canada, licensing rights to the Sealtest brand name were initially acquired by Ault Foods of Toronto, Ontario and 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, the 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 outright by Parmalat.^[4]

See also

• Parmalat Canada
  • Beatrice Foods Canada Ltd.
  • Ault Foods
  • Silverwood Dairy

References

• Ault Foods

1. ↑ Sealtest Ice Cream Parlor at Walt Disney World - WDWHistory.com
2. ↑ Unilever. "Breyers History". Retrieved 2012-06-17. 
3. ↑ Canadian Intellectual Property Office. "CANADIAN TRADE-MARK DATA: Registration Number TMA129722". Canadian Trade-marks Database. Retrieved 2012-06-17. 
4. ↑ "CONSOLIDATION IN THE CANADIAN DAIRY INDUSTRY - THE PROCESSORS". The Ram's Horn. Summer 1997. Retrieved 2012-06-17.  Republished by Ecological Agriculture Projects, McGill University.