HB Ice Cream
HB Ice Cream (originally an acronym for both Hughes Brothers and Hazelbrook Farm) is an ice cream brand in Ireland and is part of the Unilever Group's Heartbrand ice cream brand.
It manufactures most of the Heartbrand's ice cream range, as well as some products designed exclusively for the Irish market, including the Hazelbrook Farm range of blocks of ice-cream.
In Northern Ireland, both HB and Wall's ice-cream (the UK variant of the Heartbrand) are available, and in recent years have been promoted together as HB Wall's.
History
The company was founded in 1926 as Hughes Brothers by James, George, and William Hughes at Hazelbrook Farm in Rathfarnham, Dublin. The name Hazelbrook Farm was dropped during World War II but brought back in the late 1980s. In 1964, the milk distribution operations of HB were transferred to Premier Dairies. The rest of the company was sold to W. R. Grace and Company and subsequently became part of Unilever in 1973.
In 2005, the HB Ice Cream plant in Rathfarnham was closed with the loss of 180 jobs.
Advertising
In 2016 the brand celebrated its 90th birthday, and all television adverts since 1961 for HB returned to television screens. Some adverts were used for Wall's in England, Miko in France and other sister brands. On 26 April 2017 many of the adverts from the 1960s and 1970s were made available to the Irish Film Archives.
See also
References
- Tears and Smiles as the HB Factory Close, Rathfarnham Community Website
- See "The Story of HB" "80 years of Ireland's favourite Ice Cream" by Paul Mulhern and Kieran Fagan. First Published by Unilever Ireland, 20 Riverwalk, National Digital Park, Citywest Business Campus, Dublin 24. Copyright Paul Mulhern and Kieran Fagan 2006. ISBN 978-0-9552292-0-6
