From Schwan’s to Yelloh: Home Delivery to End After 72 Years of Service

Say good-bye to Yelloh! Yelloh, known as Schwan’s Home Delivery until 2022, announced on Monday, September 22, it will end all operations in November. The business based in Marshall, Minnesota, has been delivering tubs of ice cream and other frozen foods in sunny-yellow trucks for 72 years. 

Here’s the scoop: Yelloh’s press release says, “Despite the current team’s efforts to navigate challenges like staffing shortages and supply chain disruptions, the company’s business model has become increasingly difficult to sustain in today’s competitive market.”  

In 2019, the company was rebranded after the remaining family members. descendents of founder Marvin Schwan, inked a deal for $1.8 billion to sell 80 percent of their business to the largest food manufacturer in Korea, CJCheil Jedang (CJCJ). The Schwan family spun off the home-delivery division and kept 100 percent ownership. In what they stated was an attempt to appeal to a broader customer base, they rechristened it Yelloh. 

Customers in the Milbank area, however, said they began to lose trust in the business when its name was changed to Yelloh. One person said, “It was confusing.” Another gave a frosty reception to the new name, “My mom grew up with Schwan’s, I grew up with Schwan’s, and so are my kids, but a lot of the nostalgia I felt for it went away along with the name.”  Several Milbank-area customers also cited higher prices coupled with diminishing quality, especially in regard to their ice cream, as the main reason they curbed their spending with Yelloh. 

It’s likely many factors came into play, but as recently as last fall, Yelloh had closed 90 delivery centers and laid off 750 employees. Now, with closure imminent, the company is pointing to “insurmountable business challenges for the decision, including economic and market forces and changing consumer lifestyles.” Longtime board member, Michael Ziebel, said. “Digital shopping has replaced the personal, at-the-door customer interaction that was the hallmark of the company.”

It’s true, the food delivery business and the way consumers view it has evolved at a meteoric pace. However, folks in the U.S. are known for having a soft serve spot for a rags-to-riches story, and the company’s founder, 23-year-old Marvin Schwan, epitomizes the American dream. On March 18, 1952, Schwan packed dry ice and 14 gallons of ice cream into a beat up Dodge panel van and went door-to-door in rural Montevideo. He chatted with the farmers and sold them his family’s homemade ice cream for about $1.50 a gallon.

Customers were either swayed by Marvin’s sweet talk, his delicious ice cream, or both because after 10 years of business, the company grew to more than $4.5 million in revenues and 83 trucks were on the road. 

 Schwan’s continued to grow into a multi-billion dollar company that remained private and along the way added an array of frozen foods such as Mrs. Smith’s pies and Pagoda egg rolls. In the 1970s they entered the frozen pizza business with Tony’s .Later they added Red Baron, Freschetta, and others to capture 25 percent of the market and become the nation’s largest producer of frozen pizza. At its apex, their home delivery stretched to include 48 states. In 2023 it shrunk to 18 states and now  Maine. The yellow trucks also crisscross most of Texas. 

Many of the milestones the Schwan’s company accomplished, such as surpassing the size of Dairy Queen or running the largest fleet of refrigerated trucks in the U.S., went unnoticed by the public because the company remained tight-lipped about its success. Marvin preferred to foster the importance of private entrepreneurship and Christian values in both his personal and professional lives. Marvin died suddenly of a heart attack in 1993, but the company continued to operate with a Schwan brother in charge until 2009, when Alfred, Marvin’s last remaining brother, retired at the age of 85.  

Just one year before Marvin died he had created the Marvin M. Schwan Foundation. The foundation has donated millions of dollars as a major supporter of  conservative Lutheran organizations.