See all interviews Project resources Video excerptĪ brief timeline of ice cream and Dreyer’s Grand ![]() Geraci, project director and interviewer Shanna Farrell, interviewer Robin Li, interviewer Linda Norton, editor and David Dunham, technologist The company's entrance into the global marketplace came in 2006 when Nestlé Corporation acquired 67 percent of their shares and thus became the world's largest producer of ice cream. Over the next few decades Dreyer’s became the largest American ice cream company and, in 1981, the corporation began to trade shares on the NASDAQ. Founded in 1928 and opened on Oakland’s Grand Avenue, Dreyer’s ice cream business survived the challenges of the Great Depression and World War II by producing quality ice cream and developing new brand awareness built upon their invention of Rocky Road ice cream. Dreyer’s serves as an important case study for the route of developing a local business and growing it to the regional, state, national, and eventually global marketplace. Missing from the story is the role of Bay Area ice creams, such as Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, that played a vital role in this process. In the end, the best of the regional foodways became a focal point for businesspersons to grow local food businesses into profitable national and global brands. Herb Caen, Cecilia Chiang, Doris Muscatine, Narsai David, and Alice Waters, among others, became modern food pioneers dedicated to establishing a regional food identity. The Bay Area’s post World War II era also nurtured regional food educators and practitioners that elevated the status of the region’s foodways. ![]() Yet, the story is somewhat bifurcated in that food became more than a business as it emerged as a marker for regional identity predicated upon enjoying fine local foods and imbibing world-class wines. Examples of these companies include: coffee giants Maxwell House, Hills Brothers, and Peet’s bread giant Boudin Golden Grain Macaroni’s Rice-a-Roni chocolatiers Ghirardelli and Scharffenberger and wine giants, including Gallo and Mondavi. By the 20th century, these businesses emerged as integral parts of multinational diversified corporations and key players in the global economy. ![]() As a result, the state served as the springboard for numerous food and wine businesses to establish profitable regional operations. Over the past century and a half, California’s coastal Mediterranean climate and irrigated inland valleys provided insightful entrepreneurs in the Golden State, and the Bay Area in particular, opportunities to become leaders in food and wine agribusinesses. For the project, OHC conducted approximately 100 hours of interviews with the owners, investors, employees, and relevant individuals who helped make Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream an international brand between 19. The Oral History Center (then the Regional Oral History Office) of the Bancroft Library conducted an oral history project to document the history of the Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream Company, interviewing some of the key people who built its local, national, and international presence.
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