The story
Early history
Prior to the heart logo, the ice cream brands had different logos, often consisting of a blue circle with the local brand's name over a background of five vertical red stripes. Uses of this logo reach back to the 1960s. Though it was not universally used for all the countries listed above (Wall's in the UK, for example, used a yellow logo with Wall's in blue text), while many brands were shared across different countries.
The Heartbrand was launched in 1998 as an effort to increase international brand awareness and promote cross-border synergies in manufacturing and marketing ("centralisation"). It featured a red curved heart on a yellow background and was designed by Carter Wong Design. The updated brand was promoted with a Europe-wide marketing campaign and a cooperation with the US cable television channel MTV.
In early 2003 the symbol itself was simplified by replacing the yellow shades with white. The blue script lettering for the local names was abandoned in favour of a simpler all-caps sans-serif font.
Around 2006, Unilever was the world's biggest ice cream manufacturer, with an annual turnover of €5 billion and invested around €50 million annually in ice-cream research and development. Unilever operated eleven ice cream factories in Europe; the biggest included factories at Heppenheim in Germany, Caivano in Italy, Saint-Dizier in France, and Gloucester in the United Kingdom.
Formation of The Magnum Ice Cream Company
In March 2024, Unilever announced plans to spin off its ice cream unit into a standalone business planned to complete by the end of 2025. On 1 July 2025, in preparation to becoming a stand-alone company, Unilever's ice cream division became an independent subsidiary named the Magnum Ice Cream Company, with headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Unilever deemed the demerger of ice cream division necessary as ice cream has distinct characteristics compared with Unilever's other operating businesses, including frozen supply chain and point of sale that support frozen goods, a different channel landscape, more seasonality, and greater capital intensity and allows Unilever to more closely align with its core businesses in four categories; personal care, home care, beauty & wellbeing and foods.
The Magnum Ice Cream Company is predicted to have about 21% of the world's ice cream sales.
Dispute with Ben and Jerry's
In September 2025, after the Magnum Ice Cream Company had demerged from Unilever, Ben & Jerry's cofounder, Ben Cohen, protested in London, demanding to "free Ben & Jerry's", which he and his fellow cofounder, Jerry Greenfield, said was necessary to protect the long-held social values of Ben & Jerry's. The new CEO of Magnum, Peter ter Kulve, however, stated that Ben & Jerry's would not be sold because it was fully integrated into the Magnum Ice Cream Company. Later in September, Greenfield resigned from the company in protest that Unilever and the Magnum Ice Cream Company were inhibiting the independence of Ben & Jerry's to have a voice on social issues.
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Listings
On 8 December 2025, the Magnum Ice Cream Company was spun-off and listed for trading with an initial public offering on the Amsterdam, London, and New York stock exchanges and an initial market value of $9.1 billion.
From Wikipedia’s article on The Magnum Ice Cream Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7