Last week Jerry Greenfield – best known as one half of iconic ice cream duo Ben & Jerry's - announced his resignation from the company he co-founded almost 50 years ago.
In an open letter shared by the other half of the partnership – Ben Cohen – Greenfield said he could no longer "in good conscience" continue working for a company that had been "silenced" by its parent company, Unilever.
The row can be traced back to a 2021 disagreement between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever relating to the sale of its ice cream in the occupied Palestinian territories.
However many feel the falling out has been 25 years in the making.
Where did Ben & Jerry’s come from?
You have to go all the way back to the mid-70s for the origins of the business – and the first surprising thing is that the ice cream empire we know today was all a bit of an accident.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were old school friends who had tried and failed at a number of other ventures of their own – for example, Cohen’s pottery business and Greenfield’s attempt to enter medicine.
With no sign of solo success, the pair decided to try and set up a business together – incorporating Ben & Jerry’s in 1977.
But initially they planned on selling bagels – and it was only when they realised that the equipment required to make these baked goods was too expensive.
That led them to seek out a new idea, which led them to discovering a one-week ice cream-making course at Penn State – which cost $5 to sign up to.
Once that was completed they took the money they had, converted an old petrol station in Vermont, and started selling ice cream.
But even at this stage they clearly weren’t all-in on ice cream. Given that Vermont is not always the warmest place, the pair thought it wise to hedge their bets and also offer customers crepes and soups.
Of course those products didn’t catch on, but the ice cream did.
How quickly did it grow?
Incredibly fast.
Having incorporated the company in 1977, they set up the shop in 1978 and, by 1979, they were already selling wholesale. That meant customers could pick up a tub of their ice cream in the supermarket, rather than having to go to their scoop shop.
By 1985 – just seven years after opening their doors, Ben & Jerry’s $10m – the equivalent of around $30m today.
Part of that was due to their good timing – as they launched onto the scene just as the premium and ultra-premium ice cream market was expanding
By the late 1970s that still accounted for a tiny proportion of total sales – with Häagen-Dazs dominating. But Ben & Jerry’s quickly positioned itself as a very different type of premium product.
While Häagen-Dazs projected an image of refinement and luxury, Ben & Jerry’s leaned into a more homemade, wholesome and irreverent image. Their tubs almost looked hand-made, with pictures of the founders on the lid, and a basic-looking logo on the front. Then, of course, they started with the novelty names like Cherry Garcia, named after the frontman from The Grateful Dead.
And all of that endeared them to customers.
But so too did the flavours themselves – which, like the business was a bit of an act of happenstance.
Because Ben Cohen suffers from anosmia – that means he has a very poor sense of smell, which in turn means he has a poor sense of taste.
To ensure he – and others – could get some enjoyment out of the products, the pair decided to make ice cream that had really strong flavours – and really distinct textures. That is also the reason why there’s always chunks in there.
And that quickly became a distinct feature of their products that lasts to this day.
When did they start to add activism into the business?
It was always there to some degree – starting with a policy of giving employees good terms and conditions and linking their income to average salaries in the company. But it became broader and more formalised within the business in the mid-80s.
When the company decided to fund an expansion through a sale of shares, it decided to shirk venture capital and institutional investors and instead limit the sale to Vermont residents.
On the back of this it also set up a foundation, pledging at least 7.5% of annual profits towards it, which all went towards benefitting the company’s immediate surroundings.
In the 1990s they started campaigning for children’s rights – and campaigning against the use of genetically engineered hormones in cattle. That broadened out into campaigns around climate change and emissions – while in more recent years they’ve also been very vocal on LGBTQ+ matters, issues like marriage equality, as well as racial inequality.
When did Unilever come onto the scene?
Unilever swooped in to acquire Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 – paying $326m for the firm.
And for Unilever the deal made sense – here was a globally-recognised, market leading, premium brand that - by that time – had a great reputation, a loyal customer base and revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Bundling that in with its existing ice cream brands – like HB and Magnum – meant they could take that and squeeze lots of extra efficiencies out of the model.
But it made less sense from the Ben & Jerry’s side. Because by rowing in with a massive, global corporation, Ben & Jerry’s jeopardised that wholesome, homemade image that it had cultivated for more than 20 years. And it was clearly going to struggle to paint the image of being the underdog fighting the good fight once it was part of that global machine.
People also wondered whether it would be able to continue its activism and social messaging – because mega-corporations like Unilever are notoriously reluctant to get political in that way. They might quietly lobby governments to try to get their way, but they don’t tend to take a very public stance on hot topics in the way that Ben & Jerry’s did.
As a result, many felt from the get-go that those two ways of doing business were incompatible. Even Ben and Jerry themselves didn’t seem entirely thrilled with the tie-up.
In a statement following the deal, Ben Cohen said he would have preferred for the company to stay independent – though he also said he was excited about the next chapter.
So why did they agree to be bought by them?
This is the risk you invite in when you list your company on the stock exchange.
A flotation tends to be irresistible to companies once they reach a certain size – and is generally seen as the best way for a firm to get a big injection of cash to help it to grow – but once you invite shareholders in, your obligation is to maximise their returns.
And you don’t really have a say on who those shareholders are. That means that, depending on how much of the company you float and the type of shares you offer, there is a chance that someone who doesn’t share your vision or priorities becomes a major shareholder – and potentially even the controlling shareholder.
And while Ben & Jerry’s was a success by most people’s measure, it wasn’t a particularly performing well stock in the late 1990s, and that opens the door for a bigger player to move in and buy it up. And that’s what happened here.
At the time of the acquisition, Ben & Jerry’s was actually talking to a number of potential suitors – in the end they decided that Unilever was the best of a bad bunch.
And that wasn’t solely based on the amount of money they offered – though that was important.
It was also down to the fact that Unilever convinced Cohen and Greenfield that they were keen to improve their environmental record – essentially offering the pair a chance to influence the carbon footprint of one of the biggest companies in the world.
Crucially Unilever also promised to keep Ben & Jerry’s as a separate entity within the group – with its own board and structure. This – it said - would allow it to continue to focus on the social issues it deemed important without any influence from head office. Meanwhile Unilever promised to pump millions of dollars a year into its charitable foundation, which would go towards all of those good causes they championed.
When did tensions between Unilever and Ben and Jerry’s begin to grow?
Things were actually relatively peaceful between the two sides for roughly 20 years. Ben & Jerry’s continued to take very public stances on what – certainly in America – were contentious issues like marriage equality, climate change – and in more recent years Black Lives Matters.
But the first real sign of trouble between the two was in 2021, when Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop selling ice creams in the occupied Palestinian territories.
That move was opposed by Unilever – and while technically the merger deal meant it was a decision for Ben & Jerry’s, the parent company wielded its power by selling the Israeli arm of the brand – including its recipes – to a local company.
That sparked a lawsuit between Ben & Jerry and Unilever, which was settled in 2022 – though the terms of it were private.
But that wasn’t the end of it, was it?
No, it’s really escalated from that point.
Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever again last year, saying it had breached the terms of that 2022 agreement by blocking it from speaking out about Gaza. The company claimed its parent had stopped its attempts to call for a ceasefire, its support of US students protesting the war, and its call for the US to stop giving military aid to Israel.
It also said it had attempted to criticise Donald Trump a number of times but been blocked from doing so.
In March of this year Unilever sacked Ben & Jerry’s CEO David Stever – which the ice cream brand says was due to his social activism. Unilever denied this.
Then in April, Unilever announced it was going to audit the company’s charitable arm – the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation - to see how it was spending its money. That’s money which Unilever ultimately provides.
The focus here seems to be on a group called the Oakland Institute, which has been critical of Israel and the World Bank, and has been in receipt of funding from the foundation. Again this has been seen by critics as an attempt by Unilever to influence the types of activism the company engages in.
Critics of Unilever argue that the corporation was happy to leave Ben & Jerry’s to its own devices when the political winds were blowing in favour of issues like climate change and marriage equality. But the rise of the culture wars has heightened the risk of boycotts, whilea the return of Donald Trump to the White House - and his willingness to punish companies that disagree with him - means there’s now a business risk to a brand being vocal like this.
And that, they say, is why Unilever has taken more of an interest in what Ben & Jerrys wants to say and do.
So is there any hope of a resolution in all of this?
Ben Cohen did recently reveal that they had sought to buy back the brand from Unilever for a price of between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, but Unilever rejected that.
Part of the reason for that is likely the fact that Unilever is in the middle of breaking off its ice cream brands from the broader business.
Losing Ben & Jerry’s would have made that new company – called the Magnum Ice Cream Company – less valuable.
But that demerger can also be seen as part of the reason why it’s moving to deal with any potential controversies from Ben & Jerry’s now – because keeping the co-founders and the social messaging - and having it attract the ire of the White House would - probably damage the value of the new company too.
That ice cream company is going to be fully independent of Unilever by November – Unilever will hold a 20% stake, but plans to sell that down over time until it’s completely removed.
And maybe there’s a glimmer of hope for Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in there. Because, as part of a smaller company, it might have a slightly better chance of being able to take stances on social issues without angering a massive corporation that feels it has a lot to lose. Or it might even draw in a new owner that’s not as fearful of getting political (although most companies with that kind of money probably will have the same attitude as Unilever).
Or maybe the smaller parent company could also make it a small bit easier for the pair to successfully agree a buy out of the brand, like it’s already tried.
