The Ice Cream Giant's Co-founder Jerry Greenfield Steps Down, Claiming Unilever Silenced Social Mission
The Vermont-based ice cream maker's co-founder Jerry Greenfield has stepped away from the beloved brand after almost five decades, as stated by a message from his fellow founder Ben Cohen.
Cohen’s post shared what he described as a letter from Greenfield, in which the departing executive labeled it one of the “hardest and difficult decisions” of his life.
Greenfield stated that the organization had been silenced by its corporate owner and that its independence to address global issues was now “gone.”
“If the company couldn’t stand up for the values we believed in, then it wasn’t worth being a company at all,” Greenfield said.
This move came despite a merger agreement designed to safeguard the brand’s social mission, Greenfield noted.
“This autonomy existed in no small part because of the unique acquisition terms” that he and Cohen had negotiated with the conglomerate, Greenfield wrote.
The ice cream maker and Unilever declined to comment to a media inquiry from the news agency.
Recently, Cohen said that amid disagreements with the parent company, the brand had tried to engineer a transfer to investors at a reasonable price of $1.5 to $2.5 billion, but the proposal was turned down.
The multinational and Ben & Jerry’s have been in conflict since at least 2021, when the company announced it would stop selling in the contested West Bank. The brand has also taken legal action against its owner over alleged attempts to silence it and has referred to the conflict in Gaza “atrocities.”