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.
Contents
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 its celebrates its 90th birthday and all television adverts since 1961 for HB will return to the television screens again to celebrate from the oldest to the more recent. Same adverts were used for Wall's in England, Miko in France and many other sister brands.