From its launch in 1961, the ice cream was made using cream and natural ingredients for the flavorings, in contrast with competing brands which used often artificial ingredients. It was high in butterfat and had less air, which, according to Rose Mattus' autobiography, was the result of a factory accident, when the air injection pump broke. Reuben developed the flavors and Rose marketed the product. Her first marketing ploy was to dress up elegantly – in keeping with the upmarket positioning of the brand – and give away free samples at local grocers. Another part of her strategy was to market the brand to university students, and she made certain that ice cream parlors near New York University in Greenwich Village carried Häagen-Dazs. The brand, which grew only slowly through the 1960s, was at first distributed nationally by Greyhound Bus deliveries to college towns. By 1973, it was sold throughout the United States, and in 1976 the first Häagen-Dazs store opened in Brooklyn.