On 25 September 2026, Parle’s Hide & Seek chocolate-chip cookie moved out of the biscuit aisle and into the freezer.
Vadilal Industries, India’s second-largest ice cream brand, signed a trademark licensing agreement with Parle Products to manufacture and distribute a Hide & Seek branded ice cream range. Vadilal builds the product, manages the cold chain, and places it across its parlours, modern trade chains, and quick-commerce platforms. Parle licenses the name. The products come as tubs and cones, carrying the Hide & Seek identity alongside the Vadilal name.
The deal works because Hide & Seek has been India’s shorthand for premium chocolate chips in a biscuit since 1996. A consumer reaching for a cone already knows what that flavour promises. Vadilal does not need to explain or educate; the borrowed name does both. The economics are asymmetric. Vadilal gains consumer recognition it would otherwise spend years and significant marketing budgets building from scratch. Parle earns returns from a category it has no manufacturing presence in.
The lesson holds for any brand entering a new subcategory. Consumer recognition is a form of collateral, and most brands leave it sitting idle. A company with strong equity in one format, biscuit, candy, or snack, often has latent authority over a flavour occasion or emotional territory that another brand in a different category wants. Licensing converts that idle equity into revenue and reach for both sides. The question to ask is not what can we make, but whose name already owns the flavour we are selling.
The shortest route into a consumer’s freezer is sometimes through a name they already trust in their cupboard.
Related reading: Amul Undercut Kwality Walls on Ice Cream Prices for Years. A Cooperative Beat a Corporation at Its Own Game · Tata Paid ₹5,100 Crore for a Hakka Noodles Brand. It Was the Smartest Acquisition in Indian FMCG Last Year. · Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart Just Handed FMCG Brands a New Problem: Be Available in 10 Minutes or Be Invisible.
(Verify facts here: smestreet.in, indiantelevision.com, retailintel.in, hospibuz.com)
