Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand, has stepped down from the company he started 47 years ago citing a retreat from its campaigning spirit under parent company Unilever.
Greenfield wrote in an open letter late Tuesday night — shared on X by his co-founder Ben Cohen — that he could no longer “in good conscience” remain an employee of the company and said the company had been “silenced.”
He said the company’s values and campaigning work on “peace, justice, and human rights” allowed it to be “more than just an ice cream company” and said the independence to pursue this was guaranteed when Anglo-Dutch packaged food giant Unilever bought the brand in 2000 for $326 million.
Cohen’s statement didn’t mention Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza, but Ben & Jerry’s has been outspoken on the treatment of Palestinians for years and in 2021 withdrew sales from Israeli settlements in what it called “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Every time you buy the ice-cream you vote for the company to exist - if you are not happy about the company’s actions in Palestine or elsewhere the next step should be very easy to figure out.
In fact Unilever has a t least another couple of brands you can try to resist to show that maybe this shit show isn’t what you want in the world.
Nothing says “let’s change” to a capitalist like a dripping sales.
Boycotting is easier said than done, given that there a really just a handful of companies who own all the companies in the world
https://boycott-israel.org/boycott.html
When Ben & Jerry’s decided to stop selling its products in Israel, Unilever sold off the Israeli distribution rights to Avi Zinger to circumvent their decision and to force Ben & Jerry’s brand name to continue selling in Israel.
I’m sick and tired of this clown. He keeps rambling about how he values “independence” and his “values”, but if that’s the case why the fuck did he decide to sell his independent company and it’s founding values to a giant soulless corporation like Unilever? He and Ben sold the company 25 years ago for a nice fat paycheck, and haven’t looked back since. Interestingly enough, the vast majority of their “moral consciousness” only started becoming public after they sold out and cashed out. They willingly gave up their independence and values for money, and now they’re acting shocked that they don’t have as much control over the company they sold as they imagined.
Him being a hypocrite doesn’t change anything.
If people boycott the company over his comments it’s not like he benefits in any way.
You’re cute, deflecting the issue away from Palestine and genocide. It almost slipped past us.
Told you so.
just Bens now.
Guess you shouldn’t have sold out to capitalists, Jerry. FAFO.
Hopefully, they will build a successor to the brand. (Un?)fortunately, B&J’s Cream probably isn’t in the cards.
Setting aside the puerile humor, Greenfield & Cohen’s, perhaps?
They should be able to afford the bagel oven now.
Great, new flavors like Jam-ba-lya… Extra lye for pretzel flavor plus jam right in the dough
I met Jerry during the Bernie campaign. He was serving ice cream to campaign volunteers. He’s a nice man.
They both came to the Occupy camp I was at and handed out free ice cream.
Unfortunately all good things come to an end in America. They get bought out by a company who only cares about the rich and their shareholders and hate their customers.
We are all stuck in a cycle that will never change unless a giant meteor hits or something. No good deed goes unpunished in a capitalist country.
you wrote that like you know about -the meteor- which is strange because I didn’t think anyone else knew about it.
Unilever has owned B&J’s for quite some time now.
I just looked it up, Unilever bought them in April of 2000. That’s over 25 years ago. Part of that merger was an agreement that B&J’s could still be vocal about things, and it looks like Unilever has tried to go back on that several times.
Important caveat: IANAL.
I’ve seen elsewhere the response to the Ben and Jerry’s news hitting basically boiling down to “fucking cry about it sell outs, you got into bed with Unilever”. Which, sure, fine if that’s your (general “you”, not you specifically OP) perspective, far be it from me to yuck your yums. That being said, according to the AP article I read, they carved out (or attempted to) the right to continue to manage the social justice aspect of the Ben and Jerry’s brand without interference, in perpetuity, as a condition of the sale. As I understand it, Unilever has done a number of things to erode those carveouts, basically by repeatedly spinning off portions of the business into new companies, which they argue are not beholden to that agreement. For example, despite Ben and Jerry’s public support of Palestine and objection to their products being sold in Israel, Unilever simply licensed the product to Israeli manufacturers who sell it under their own brand names. Additionally, and this is what appears to be what precipitated this departure, they are now spinning all of their frozen confectionary brands off into something like Magnum Foods (because the two things I want to have on my mind while looking for ice cream are guns and condoms).
Like, I understand anyone who looks at the hundreds of millions that these guys received in 2000 and has difficulty mustering sympathy for their plight. That being said, I don’t begrudge them their pay day. They said, at the time, that the partnership would enable them to extend their social justice campaigns beyond what they could do as independents. From what I’ve seen, they’ve largely lived up to that over the ensuing years.
Honestly, it’s incredible both of them lasted the 20+ years they did. This sounds like PE buyout and CEOs and company founders don’t tend to be around long after the transition. They did good. They should be proud. I’d love a list of what they accomplished with their social justice initiatives but I’m in bed. I’ll check tomorrow.
Yeah. They tried to have it both ways, though, and a corporate giant like Unilever was never going to let that go on forever.
Perhaps. I won’t find fault with someone who took every reasonable measure within their power to try and maintain some degree of ethics. Bitching about Ben and Jerrys corporate management sounds a lot like letting perfect be the enemy of good. Just my take on it tho.
Dabbling in stocks and as I grow older and working longer under a corporation, I realised it’s hard to be ethical in a capitalist system.
A capitalist system is designed to prevent from acting based on ethics.
Yup. Chase what’s right and moral or chase money. They don’t overlap often.
Now announcing Unilever™'s Ben & Jerry’s newest ice cream
Flavor Bomb! Vanilla swirled with Caramel and Salty Crunchy Peanut Clusters
It’ll be unveiled to the Palestinian people in Gaza in the middle of that big clearing surrounded by IDF soldiers with guns
Hello kiddo!
Yom HaZikaron!
It’s a fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-Flavour Bomb!
And we’re going to have Sugar Bombs coming to a store near you!
This post’s comments showcases the bad part of the left. The part thats no difference from MAGA, ugly and pointing fingers at something for a distraction. But instead theyre MALA, make America left again with even more political correctness.
I feel it more wanting to see it as a black and white issue than something with a ton of nuance. This deal had to have been complex, and for whatever reason they willingly sold to Unilever, I doubt any of us commenting here will ever understand. I wouldn’t want to be in their situation.
If people want to point out areas where they think they could have done better, let’s discuss it. But all we tend to get is “rich people bad.” I won’t totally disagree with that statement, but it seems like they have also done a lot of good for Vermont and beyond. They’ve given over 70 million in grants, but so what, right? Why not 71 million?!
I just think we’ve got better people to be mad at now than some hippies that went corporate. To just write off what they did because they got personal benefits as well is likely hypocritical. I never see these screen names talking about what direct action they’re part of or what solutions they’ve got. A little funny how that is.
If they want to complain or downvote, that’s their prerogative, but I bet it won’t accomplish as much good as what Ben and Jerry have done. 😉
Companys that were evil back when they sold didnt seem as evil compared to nowadays. I think thats the missing nuance. But i agree wholeheartedly with you.
Fuck Ben & Jerry. They were bankrolling campaign against supply of military equipment to Ukraine.
I don’t agree with it, but it’s a pacifist viewpoint consistent with free speech.
There is nothing pacifist with letting russians genocide Ukrainians freely. We already saw what happens when USA stops military aid, russia goes on offensive emboldened by such actions.
You didn’t have to sell it to them asshole
Unilever the never-left-russia-still-there-today Unilever?
