Oh my God! More bad news – and all this in the middle of the summer! As if the ice cream business in the Rhine-Main region wasn't already in turmoil after the legal dispute over the successor for a cult ice cream parlour in Nordend, suddenly rumours emerged that Langnese might close its plant in Heppenheim in southern Hesse.

That certainly caused a stir not only among people who were worried about their ice cream supply, but for some about their jobs. Langnese's parent company Unilever recently announced its intention to spin off its ice cream business into an independent company. This immediately triggered speculation about the future of the Heppenheim factory and its around 600 employees. The site is one of the largest in the Langnese Group – and almost half of the 7,500 jobs jeopardised by the spin-off plans are in Europe. Dio mio! Fortunately the situation quickly cooled down again, when Unilever gave the all clear.

The Langnese factory in southern Hesse, which produces around 1.5 billion portions of ice cream a year, is not at risk. The company has just invested heavily in the Magnum ice cream epicentre, which Unilever sees as a long-term commitment to the Heppenheim site.

The ice cream parlour dispute in Frankfurt's Nordend district has now also found an amicable solution. Last autumn, after almost 50 years, the Eis Christina ice cream shop, famous far beyond the district, closed its doors. Queues of customers lined Eckenheimer Landstraße to bid farewell, and in addition to mourning the loss of Christina, they also stressed that Nordend needed a suitably high quality successor.

Interested parties were quickly found. A young couple took over the shop, the majority of the former employees and the name. As Gelateria Christina, a new ice cream parlour opened at the old location in May. But what was meant as an homage to the cult predecessor was met with strong disapproval from many customers, and above all from the former family owners. The original Christina operators felt robbed of their traditional brand – and called in the lawyers.

After some high-profile wrangling, the solution found was ultimately quite pragmatic. The ice cream parlour is now called Gelateria Dio Mio. Result: founders satisfied, new tenants satisfied, customers satisfied.

All the fuss is forgotten, the Hessian world of ice cream lovers is back in order. Jobs and refreshment supplies are equally secure. Thank goodness!