Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream is Now Just Ben’s After Jerry Quits

Ben & Jerry's ice cream has been around since 1978 and has become a staple brand in America and around the world. Jerry has decided to walk away from the brand.

Ben & Jerry's is not the most affordable brand of ice cream, but there is no doubt that the two founders created some of the best flavors in the industry.

Ben & Jerry's: Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are childhood friends who founded Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc. in Burlington, Vermont, in 1978. The two completed a correspondence course on ice cream making from Pennsylvania State University's creamery, and the rest is history.

Ben and Jerry started with a $12,000 investment in 1978 and turned their ice cream company into a multi-million dollar corporation that sold their products around the globe.

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In 2000, Ben & Jerry's sold to British food giant Unilever for $326 million. The deal was made for Unilever to carry on the company's tradition of engaging in critical, global, economic, and social missions. Ben and Jerry have remained as paid employees of the company but not in a position of operational or managerial responsibiltiy. That has now changed for one of the men.

Jerry Quits—Ben’s Ice Cream Now Flying Solo

According to WOOD TV, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield left the brand after 47 years. Ben Cohen posted on X on Greenfield's behalf saying, "For more than 20 years under their ownership, Ben & Jerry's stood up and spoke out in support of peace, justice and human rights, not as abstract concepts. It's profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that the independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone."   

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A spokesperson for Unilever said they are moving all its ice cream business including Ben & Jerry's into a stand-alone company, The Magnum Ice Cream Company. Magnum said it will remain "focused on carrying forward the legacy of peace, love, and ice cream of this iconic, much-loved brand."

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