The dispute broke out. A cold dispute. The Unifood group activated a judicial attack to stop the decision of the giant Nestléwhich -recently- unilaterally and early terminated the contract for the use of the Savory brand for ice cream parlors with the aforementioned gastronomic conglomerate, which is facing a serious financial crisis.
The agreement between the parties expired in December 2027, but the Swiss multinational – as revealed Financial Diary– accused several breaches of what calls itself “the largest and most important ice cream chain in the country” and which – until now – operates the stores in Chile under license from Nestlé, which is the owner of the traditional Savory brand.
For the Swiss giant, the Ice Cream company (a subsidiary of the Unifood group and which owns the ice cream parlors) breached at least two points of the contract: that it is insolvent (a supplier has already requested its liquidation) and for the damage to the reputational image of the brand, an issue derived from the first point.
Nestlé sent the letter unilaterally terminating the contract on December 15 and would seek that Ice Cream management begin removing Savory signs from its premises.
Unifood, along with operating the ice cream parlors, It also manages the Pollo Stop and Pedro, Juan y Diego (Cuatro SpA) chains, with more than 250 points of sale and more than 2,200 employees..
More than a year ago, the group separately achieved a judicial reorganization agreement for each of the aforementioned companies; It refinanced liabilities for $45 billion and, in each process, the company pointed to financial effects generated by the social crisis and then the pandemic.
The debts of Ice Cream, which operates 117 Savory ice cream shops and employs 818 people, exceeded $15 billion at the time of its reorganization request. The main creditors are Scotiabank, Nestlé Chile and Santander Chile.
In October of this year, the company was sued by a supplier for breaching its reorganization agreement. Ice Cream rejected the legal action.
The company’s plan is to complete the sale of Ice Cream with the Savory brand license in force and thus pay its debts.
The judicial action
In the midst of this scenario, yesterday, December 23, lawyer Luis Carlos Valdés, representing Ice Cream, asked the court to decree the precautionary measure of an order not to innovate against Nestlé Chile.
The jurist said that “surprisingly,” on December 15, 2025, Nestlé sent a letter to Ice Cream informing it of its intention to immediately terminate the Savory Contract and that, a day later, the company responded that the termination was invalid. “The reasons he alleged to justify his untimely (and illegal) decision are surprising, both for openly contradicting Nestlé’s statements and past behavior, and for being factually false,” said the jurist. who maintained that “it is urgent” that an order not to innovate be issued, ordering Nestlé to “respect” the Savory Contract.
“This measure could not be simpler: there is a creditor who seeks to steal (and actually force the theft) an essential asset of Ice Cream’s heritagewithout legitimate legal or contractual cause, to benefit himself, to the detriment of other creditors and the workers of the debtor company,” he noted.
The third
In his appeal, Ice Cream’s lawyer said that, on December 17, the company was informed that Nestlé would have a verbal agreement for a third party to operate the Savory Ice Cream Shops. What – he added – was confirmed later that same day in the creditors’ committee, when, in his words, the auditor “summoned the representative of Nestlé, who laconically excused himself by saying that ‘everyone looked after their own interests’.”
Then, the lawyer stated: “This situation becomes even more suspicious when knowing the identity of who could be the future operator of Heladerías Savory: Fagase SA, company that operates the Dunkin Donuts brand in Chile”.
The jurist pointed out in his writing that one of the main interested parties for the acquisition of Icre Cream was Dunkin Donuts, who – he said – signed a confidentiality agreement, received secret information, analyzed it and sent a non-binding offer for the purchase. However, he noted that, for reasons unknown to Ice Cream, the transaction was not closed.
“Today, the reason is obvious: Dunkin Donuts (which knew of the existence of the Savory Contract) had ‘turned its jacket’ and negotiated directly with Nestlé an agreement incompatible with the Savory Contract (…). Both must respond for the damages that this causes to Ice Cream and its creditors,” announced the lawyer, who insisted that “arbitrarily terminating the Savory Contract and negotiating a ‘pre-agreement’ with a third party confirms the bad faith of Nestlé, who will achieve the payment of their debts outside the reorganization process.”
“With the termination of the Savory Contract, Nestlé is removing the cornerstone of the Ice Cream business in exchange for the gold bar that Dunkin Donuts put in front of him“added the jurist.
Along with this, he stated that Nestlé decided to cut off the supply of ice cream to Ice Cream: “Once the inventory is exhausted, You will have nothing to sell, you will not receive income, and, as a consequence, you will not be able to continue paying your creditors.and, sooner or later, it will find itself in liquidation (…). Obviously, Nestlé doesn’t care, since it was already paid ‘outside’.”
