Hours after Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, quit the ice cream company he founded nearly five decades ago, his ex-partner Ben Cohen revealed to CNN why Jerry felt he should leave.
Jerry has a big heart, and this conflict with Unilever was really destroying him. So he felt he had no choice but to resign,” Cohen told CNN’s Vanessa Yurkevich on Wednesday. Jerry is a little sad to have come to this, but part of him feels relief from not being in this intense conflict anymore.
Earlier on Wednesday, Greenfield shared on social media that he left the ice cream company, accusing parent company Unilever of limiting Ben & Jerry’s ability to speak out on social and political causes, which is synonymous with the identity of the brand. The conflict between the co-founders and Unilever came to light in recent years, resulting in public lawsuits and letters.
Unilever, based in the United Kingdom, bought Ben & Jerry’s for $326 million in 2000, but allowed the company to operate independently and continue its social mission without interference from the new parent company. Cohen and Greenfield remained in the company, founded in 1978, but not in operational roles. Instead, they focused on the company’s social missions.
But Cohen told CNN that, after the change of direction in Unilever, none of those who signed the agreement with Ben & Jerry’s remained in the company, and the conglomerate began to miss the terms of its unique agreement with the ice cream shop. Tension intensified in recent years when Ben & Jerry’s chose to withdraw its operations from Israel, a decision that was revoked by Unilever.
Since then, the company and its parent have had disputes, mainly for social media posts with political views, which, according to Cohen, Unilever objected to and threatened to fire staff. Speaking openly on political issues, from President Donald Trump to Israel and Gaza, infuriated Unilever, which fired the company’s CEO earlier this year.
Finally, Greenfield got fed up. But Cohen said he chose to stay to continue fighting for the company’s independence.
“I am glad that we both defended the values of Ben & Jerry’s,” Cohen told CNN. I think I can be more useful from the inside, and Jerry will try to be useful from the outside.
Despite Greenfield’s departure, Cohen said he is committed to the independent board that helps control the brand and will work to convince the parent company to sell the brand to a group of investors committed to Ben & Jerry’s social mission. Currently, Ben & Jerry’s is being divested from Unilever to form a new company called The Magnum Ice Cream Company, which is expected to be listed on the stock exchange in November.
The Magnum Ice Cream Company said in a statement that it disagrees with the prospect of Greenfield and Cohen, and said it has tried to work with the brand’s co-founders.
“We remain committed to the unique three-part mission of Ben & Jerry’s, product, economic, and social, and we remain focused on maintaining the legacy of peace, love, and ice cream of this iconic, much-loved brand,” a spokesman for Magnum said in a statement.
Politics is profit
A key factor in Cohen staying in the company is to keep the three-part mission of Ben & Jerry’s intact: a social mission to support justice and equality, along with a product and financial mission. He says all three are fundamental to the brand, and he says this is good for business.
“When we created that three-part mission, we deliberately wrote it horizontally to make it clear that they are all just as important,” he said. As the company acts according to its social values and produces a large amount of ice cream, it ends up making good profits.
Unilever, which does not break down Ben & Jerry’s sales separately, reported in its annual earnings report of 2024 that its ice cream division grew 3.7 percent from the previous year.
Cohen has no regrets about maintaining his political and social positions and claims that Ben & Jerry’s products have a small portion of the market, so we don’t have to please everyone.
“The reality is that companies are incredibly political,” he said. The average business is using your money to influence elections, and you’re using your money and your lobbyists to influence the law.
He added, “The only difference is that the political aspects of Ben & Jerry’s are open, where we let people know what we think, while other businesses do it covertly.
Even with Greenfield’s departure from the company, Jerry’s spirit will always be in Ben & Jerry’s, Cohen said. And their friendship, dating back to high school when they were the two slowest and fattest kids in the class, will last.
I failed as a potter. Nobody wanted to buy my pottery. Jerry was turned away from medical school, and we got together when we were 26 and said, “Let’s try to start a small business.” Maybe that will work. “We ended up opening this homemade ice cream shop at an old gas station in Burlington, Vermont, with an investment of $8,000, and we had no plans to be anything bigger than that,” Cohen said.
It’s been an amazing trip. It’s been an amazing adventure, an incredible odyssey. There have been good times, bad times, challenging moments, and we have all spent them together, Jerry and I, and that has only strengthened our bond.
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