• The Record, Friday, December 1, 2006 11:15 AM

Rose Mattus, who created Haagen-Dazs super-premium ice cream brand with her husband, Reuben, died Tuesday, five days after her 90th birthday. Mattus, the controller of Haagen-Daz Inc., was the company's business brain and a deft promoter of the product, according to her daughter, Doris Mattus Hurley.

The Mattuses established Haagen-Dazs in the Bronx in 1959. Reuben Mattus, a Russian immigrant who got his start making lemon ice, saw a potential for an ice cream with a high butter-fat content, no fillers or stabilizers and as little air pumped into it as possible. In a legendary stroke of marketing genius, he pulled the name "Haagen-Dazs" out of thin air. Pillsbury Co. acquired the brand in 1983; it is now part of the Nestle empire.

In the early days, Reuben would send his elegantly attired wife into grocery stores to offer up samples. Saying her mother was "a fabulous saleswoman," Hurley recalled her talking one shopper into buying "20 pints for 20 kids at a birthday party."

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