Frigidaire as a brand has been around for many years. In fact, older people (80’s plus), when calling Landers Appliance for service, would often refer to their refrigerator as their Frigidaire. As best as I can determine in talking to customers and doing research, the reason for this improper naming stems from the time when Frigidaire was owned by General Motors. At the time the Frigidaire brand had a larger market share and experienced a sales surge from being associated with GM. This was also the post war time (1940’s through early 1950’s) when people were moving away from having a true ICE BOX (a box that housed a large block of ice that would keep food from spoiling until the ice melted) and transitioning to the electro-mechanical refrigerator in use today. There were no international competitors in the US appliance industry and Frigidaire was one of only a few companies offering a house hold refrigerator for sale.

Since I have been in the service business for over thirty five years, I have watched the Frigidaire brand change ownership several times. GM sold the Frigidaire brand to White Consolidated before my time. White Consolidated then sold to the current owner Electrolux in 1986. Electrolux was founded as a vacuum cleaner manufacturer and grew into the world’s largest producer of household appliances (Whirlpool is the world’s largest in the major appliance category). The Frigidaire name was used by Electrolux as the only brand sold in their American division until the Frigidaire brand was positioned as their mid grade, every day product and Electrolux was positioned as their slightly higher end brand.