Baskin Robbins vs Haagen Dazs

Some of the keywords of the summer: A/C, white clothes and ice-cream. And so follows the battle of the ice-cream brands.

“Br (Baskin Robbins) is sooooo yummy,” says Taimour on Baskin Robbins’ wall on Facebook. “The coolest ice creams in the world” adds Zainab, another of its 58,630 fans.

Haagen-Dazs only boasts 7,775 fans (constantly growing), but the comments are just as supportive. “I love haagen dazs,” says Khan Sana while others argue about which flavor is the best.

Overview

Haagen-Dazs was started by Polish immigrants Reuben and Rose Mattus in The Bronx, New York in 1961. It began with just three flavors - vanilla, chocolate, and coffee, and the company opened its first retail store in 1976.

In 1983 Mattus sold Haagen-Dazs to the Pillsbury Company, and since then the company has spread across the world, and is available in more than 50 countries now. The company claims to be a “super-premium” brand, i.e. its product is only made from natural ingredients, without any artificial colorings, flavoring or stabilizers. Apart from ice-creams, it also offers frozen yogurt and sorbet.

Baskin Robbins also started as a family business, by two brothers-in-law, Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins. They started out in separate ventures in California; Irv opened Snowbird Ice Cream in 1945, and Burt opened Burton’s Ice Cream a year later. The two merged and became Baskin-Robbins in1953. In the same year, the company introduced the ‘31′ logo, meant to represent a flavor for every day of the month. The chain went international in the 1970s, opening stores in Japan, Saudi Arabia, Korea and Australia and now has more than 5,800 retail shops in 34 countries.

Middle East

Baskin Robbins entered the market much before Haagen Dazs. People in the UAE have enjoyed the flavor of Baskin Robbins’ Mint Chocolate Chip for more than 25 years. Galadari Ice Cream Company, the franchisee of Baskin Robbins launched an aggressive expansion campaign in the GCC last year, promising to open 60 new outlets - 28 in Saudi Arabia, 17 in the UAE and the remaining in Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. Galadari is the world’s largest franchisee of Baskin Robbins, and there are nearly 100 Baskin Robbins parlors across the UAE.

Haagen Dazs entered the UAE in 1999 with its first outlet in Al Diyafa Street in Satwa and currently the country has 14 ice-cream outlets. National Trading and Developing Establishment (NTDE), is the company’s exclusive franchisee in the region. Haagen-Dazs’ network of cafes in Dubai and Sharjah also serve pastries, homemade cakes and ice cakes along with the ice-creams.

According to NTDE, Haagen-Dazs is distributed to more than 400 corporate customers in the UAE, including 50 percent of the five-star hotel chains and selected restaurants, coffee shops, hypermarkets and supermarkets.

While Baskin Robbins has the edge of being in the market longer, Haagen-Dazs is slightly cheaper. A 500ml ice-cream box of Baskin Robbins costs Dh29, while a similar sized box from Haagen Dazs comes at Dh26.
The year that Haagen Dazs entered the UAE market, Baskin Robbins entered the Guiness Book of world records for making largest ice cream cake (7 feet tall and 53 feet long) in Dubai.

Baskin-Robbins or Haagen-Dazs?

Both brands have their dead-set fans. A recent poll on Yahoo asked which brand is cooler: “Baskin robbins. Gold medal ribbon and choc chip are the best!” said Wicked little girl. Man-Kayhell strongly disagreed: “Haagen-Dazs.. I’m willing to die for it.”

Haagen-Dazs won more votes.