The original, created by Americans Richard LaMotta and Sam Metzger (1942–2010) in New York City in 1978, was made up of vanilla ice cream sandwiched by two chocolate chip cookies, with the sides rolled in chocolate chips, which stick to the ice cream.[5]
History
While ice cream sandwiches have been sold in New York City since the 1890s,[6] New York lawyer Richard LaMotta created the Chipwich in 1978. He introduced it to the city with a guerrilla marketing campaign, training sixty street cart vendors (mostly students) to sell the new product on the streets of New York, for a dollar each; this rapidly established Chipwich as a successful brand. Some twenty-five thousand Chipwiches were sold the first day, and within two weeks the company was selling 40,000 a day.[5][7]
The small, independent company struggled to find capital to expand. In 1984, Chipwich sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.[8] By 1987, co-founders Metzger and LaMotta had reorganized the company and obtained a $1 million investment from Swedish holding company Hexagon AB, which guaranteed loans and licensed its products.[9] In 1992, the company was back in Chapter 11 bankruptcy after incurring a $1.4 million loss on sales of $4.8 million; an accounting scandal involving inventory overstatements at Peltz Food, a subsidiary headed by Robert Peltz, were at the root of much of the problem.[8]
Package for the Birthday Cake flavor Chipwich, introduced in 2020
CoolBrands International bought Chipwich in 2002, becoming North America's third-largest ice cream vendor. Due to a series of financial difficulties, which began with the loss of its Weight Watchers/Smart Ones frozen food licence in 2004,[10] CoolBrands sold Chipwich, Eskimo Pie and Real Fruit to the Dreyer's division of Nestlé in 2007.[11] This was part of a larger divestiture of core assets which left the company as little more than a publicly listed empty shell.
By 2009, Nestlé had stopped production of the original Chipwich, reportedly because it competed with its own Toll House chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich.[1]
The trademark was acquired in 2017 by Crave Better Foods, LLC of Cos Cob, Connecticut.[12] The product was relaunched in 2018 in the U.S.[13][14] In 2020, the brand introduced a new flavor, Birthday Cake, to its product line.[15]
Critical response
In May 2018, the New York Times described the Chipwich as the number-one treat in its article, "The 7 Greatest Packaged Frozen Treats, Ranked." The article describes the Chipwich as having "an ideal softness all the way through," with "mellow, comforting flavors." The review notes that the cookies and ice cream filling have matching consistencies, making it easy to eat.[16]
1 Brand owned by General Mills; Produced by General Mills in the U.S. and Canada. Produced by Cereal Partners under the Nestlé brand elsewhere. 2 Brand owned by General Mills; U.S. and Canadian production rights controlled by Nestlé under license. 3 U.S. production rights owned by The Hershey Company. 4 U.S. rights and production owned by the Smarties Candy Company with a different product. 5 U.S. rights and specific trade dress owned by Nestlé; rights elsewhere owned by Associated British Foods. 6 Produced by Cereal Partners, branded as Nestlé. 7 Brand owned by Post Foods; Produced by Cereal Partners and branded as Nestlé in the U.K. and Ireland. 8 Philippine production rights owned by Alaska Milk Corporation. 9 Singaporean, Malaysian and Thai production rights owned by Fraser and Neave. 10 Used only in Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. 11 Used only in the Philippines. 12 U.S. production rights owned by the Ferrara Candy Company. 13NA rights and specific trade dress to all packaged coffee and other products under the Starbucks brand owned by Nestlé since 2019. 14 Brand owned by Mars, sold by Nestlé in Canada. 15 Produced by Froneri in the U.S. since 2020.
