These Mister Softee guys, they think they’re the mafia — that they could rub everybody out… Martin Price, Kool Man ice cream driver.

Martin Price, a 57-year-old Kool Man ice cream man, has sold frozen treats on the streets of Queens, NY for nearly 39 years.  According to the Queen’s Chronicle, threats of violence and thuggish tactics by a Mister Softee franchisee are driving him and his Kool Man ice cream truck off the road:
…a Mister Softee driver threatened him with violence after their routes began to overlap in Maspeth.
“He says he’s gonna rub me out. Now I’m Italian. When you …read more

Last week we posted the snarky email message from Ben & Jerry’s making fun of rival Häagen-Dazs’ supposed redefining the pint as 14 oz. rather than 16 oz.
Read:  Who’s Phonier? Haagen-Dazs? Ben & Jerry’s?
Being openly criticized on the immeasurably powerful FranchisePick.com blog obviously sent shockwaves through the factories to the boardrooms of Häagen-Dazs.
And rightfully so.
Today, we received this response to Ben & Jerry’s email from an obviously shaken Häagen-Dazs:
You may have seen a recent message from Ben & Jerry’s calling out our decision to downsize our Häagen-Dazs cartons.
While the reality is that size sometimes matters, we continue to believe that …read more

Check out this post on Ben & Jerry’s at Franchisor Marketing.  It’s pretty funny.
Seems that Ben & Jerry’s has built it’s brand, in no small part, by slamming rival Haagen-Dazs for being a phony corporate brand with a made-up pseudo-Scandinavian that means… nothing.

A current Ben & Jerry’s email campaign (subject line: A pint is still a pint!) blasts Haagen-Dazs for dropping the size of its “pint” container from 16 oz. to 14 oz.
But, really, which brand is being more devious here?
Ben & Jerry’s gives the impression that Haagen-Dazs is trying to pull a fast one.  In reality, Haagen-Dazs isn’t calling …read more

(Franchise Pick Franchise Blog) Things have gotten chilly for Cold Stone Creamery. It started with Richard Gibson’s The Inside Scoop article in the Wall Street Journal:
Earlier in this decade, Cold Stone Creamery was one of the hottest franchises around. The super-premium ice-cream stores attracted scores of franchisees hungry for a piece of the “Ultimate Ice Cream Experience.”
Now many franchisees are selling their stores, overwhelmed by soaring bills and shrinking profits. Some have lost their homes, broken their retirement nest eggs or filed for bankruptcy…
A number of franchisees… contend the company misled them, giving them promises of profit …read more