Ben & Jerry’s's Co-creator Jerry Greenfield Resigns, Claiming Parent Company Silenced Social Mission
The Vermont-based ice cream maker's co-creator Jerry Greenfield has parted ways from the beloved brand after nearly 50 years, as stated by a message from his fellow founder Ben Cohen.
The announcement included what he called a message from Greenfield, in which the exiting co-founder called it one of the “hardest and difficult decisions” of his life.
Greenfield asserted that the company had been restrained by its corporate owner and that its independence to address social causes was now “gone.”
“If the company couldn’t stand up for the things we believed in, then it wasn’t worth being a company at all,” he wrote.
The decision came even after a acquisition deal designed to safeguard the company’s social mission, Greenfield added.
“That independence was preserved in no small part because of the special merger agreement” that he and Cohen had arranged with the conglomerate, Greenfield explained.
The ice cream maker and Unilever declined to comment to a media inquiry from the news agency.
Recently, Cohen revealed that amid ongoing tensions with the parent company, the brand had attempted to arrange a sale to investors at a fair market value of $1.5 to $2.5 billion, but the offer was rejected.
The multinational and Ben & Jerry’s have been in conflict since at least recent years, when the company said it would stop selling in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The brand has also sued its corporate parent over accusations to silence it and has called the situation in Gaza “atrocities.”
