Dairy Queen is owned by Berkshire Hathaway (the United States, NYSE: BRK.B), which acquired the brand on 7 January 1998 for $585 million.[1][2] Dairy Queen was founded in 1940 in the United States and was independent until 1998.
Evidence: Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-03-02, SEC EDGAR, 2 March 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Dairy Queen sells soft-serve through franchised restaurants, and traces to 1938, when a father and son in Illinois developed a soft frozen dairy product and tested it at a friend's shop. Berkshire Hathaway acquired the company in 1998, and its Blizzard is served upside down to prove its thickness.
Sentences about Dairy Queen from Berkshire Hathaway's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
International Dairy Queen Inc. develops and services a worldwide system of approximately 7,800 franchised restaurants operating primarily under the names DQ Grill and Chill , Dairy Queen , DQ and Orange Julius that offer various dairy desserts, beverages, prepared foods and blended fruit drinks.
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central.
The USPTO record for the Dairy Queen mark lists AMERICAN DAIRY QUEEN CORPORATION as the owner of record (serial number 73665899). A trademark is often held by a group company rather than the listed parent, so the registrant's name can differ from the owner named above.[3]
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Berkshire Hathaway ownership tree →
See the full Berkshire Hathaway brand portfolio (19) →
Berkshire Hathaway controls 19 brands on Brandtree.
The 9 brands in ice cream & dessert chains on Brandtree belong to 8 owners. The largest is MTY Group, with 2.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| Cold Stone Creamery | MTY Group | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| La Estación | Dos Pinos | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica |
| Milky Lane | Famous Brands | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| Helados Bon | Grupo Nutresa | 🇨🇴 Colombia |
| Ibaco | Hatsun Agro | 🇮🇳 India |
| Baskin-Robbins | Inspire Brands | 🇺🇸 United States |
| MIXUE | Mixue | 🇨🇳 China |
| SweetFrog | MTY Group | 🇨🇦 Canada |
Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, founded in 1839. Brandtree records 19 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: BRK.B.
Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company built by Warren Buffett from a failing textile mill. Alongside insurance and railroads it owns consumer businesses outright and holds large minority stakes in others, including Kraft Heinz and The Coca-Cola Company.
Berkshire Hathaway: full profile, brands and acquisition history →
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Dairy Queen is not one of them.
Berkshire Hathaway acquired International Dairy Queen for about $585 million. Almost every Dairy Queen is franchised, so Berkshire owns the brand and the system rather than the restaurants.
The parent company of Dairy Queen is Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company headquartered in the United States.
Yes. Dairy Queen originated in the United States in 1940 and its owner, Berkshire Hathaway, is also headquartered in the United States.
Berkshire Hathaway completed its acquisition of Dairy Queen on 7 January 1998, after announcing the deal on 21 October 1997. The deal was valued at $585 million (enterprise value).
Dairy Queen was an independent company from its founding in 1940 until Berkshire Hathaway acquired it in 1998.
Yes. As of 10 October 2026, Dairy Queen is still owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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