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Jerry leaves Ben & Jerry’s ice cream after massive spat with owner
One half of the founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream has walked out on the company after accusing the brand’s owner of “silencing” him.
Benedict Brook in the US
September 18, 2025 – 4:41AM
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Ben and Jerry’s is in reality just Ben’s ice cream after Jerry Greenfield announced he was resigning from the company he helped create following a spat with the brand’s multi-billion dollar owner.
“This is one of the hardest and most painful decisions I’ve ever made,” said Mr Greenfield in a statement posted on co-founder Ben Cohen’s social media accounts.
“It is was it a broken heart that I’ve decided I can no longer, after 47 years, remain and employee of Ben and Jerry’s”.
Mr Greenfield accused Ben and Jerry’s parent company, British multinational Unilever, of “silencing” the “social mission” of the company he created.
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Ben and Jerry’s was formed in 1978 and was taken over by Unilever in 2000. Unilever is the world’s biggest ice cream company also owning the Streets, Magnum, Golden Gaytime and Weis brands. In addition, it produces Surf, Omo and Jif cleaning products, Done moisturiser and Hellmann’s mayonnaise among many other brands.
Mr Greenfield and Mr Cohen’s human rights activism was no secret and was intertwined with their running of the ice cream firm. When the company was purchased by Unilever 25 years ago, the pair insisted that a clause be inserted in the sale document that would allow the firm to continue its “social missions” and to operate semi-independently.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield remained employees on Ben & Jerry’s after its sale to Unilever. (Photo by Gareth Davies/Getty Images)
While neither had any control over the brand that bore their names they remained employees and steered its social activism.
But that independence was tested in 2021 when Ben and Jerry’s announced it would end an agreement with an Israeli distributor which had been selling its ice cream in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. These settlements are recognised by many international bodies as being illegal.
However, Unilever later sold Ben and Jerry’s entire Israeli operations to the same distributor meaning the brand continued to be sold in Israeli settlements.
Jerry Greenfield, left, and Bennett Cohen in 1987. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)
Ben and Jerry’s independent board accused Unilever of breaching the original sale agreement that guaranteed its autonomy particularly on social issues.
This year, it further accused Unilever of cracking down on its pro-Palestine activism and opposition to the agenda of US President Donald Trump. In May, Mr Cohen was arrested in the US Senate over military aid from the US to Israel.
Ben & Jerry’s has been part of Unilever, which owns fellow ice cream brand Streets, for 25 years.
‘Profoundly disappointing’
“It’s profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that (Ben and Jerry’s) independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone,” wrote Mr Greenfield,
“And it’s coming at a time when our country’s current administration is attacking civil rights, voting rights the rights if immigrants and the LGBTQ community.
“Ben and Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelines for fear of upsetting those in power”.
He accused Unilever of only being happy with Ben & Jerry’s political stance when there was “nothing at risk”.
Social issue save always been prominent at Ben & Jerry’s.
Unilever is currently in the process of hiving of its ice cream brands into a separately listed Dutch firm called The Magnum Ice Cream Company which will include Ben and Jerry’s.
This month the Ben & Jerry’s co-founders asked the soon to be new owners to “free Ben & Jerry’s” and let it become independent.
But Ben & Jerry’s is one of The Magnum Ice Cream Company’s biggest global brands and is heavily touted as a power brand in investor documents. It has said it is not for sale.
The Magnum Ice Cream Company said it was “forever grateful” to Mr Greenfield but it “disagreed with his perspective”.
Mr Greenfield said that Ben and Jerry’s was “always about more than just ice cream – it was a way to spread love and invite others to fight for equity, justice and better world”.
“If I can’t carry those values forward inside the company then I will carry them forever outside”.
Unilever backs out of Australian deal
Unilever has also been accused of reneging on another ice cream deal – this one with Australia’s Weis family.
In 2017, Unilever bought Weis to add to its Streets business but assured customers at the time that there would “no changes to where we make our products” and the long standing factory in Toowoomba was safe.
Les Weis outside the Weis factory in Toowoomba in 2017 which was later closed by Unilever.
Two years later, Unilever moved all Weis production to the Streets factory in western Sydney axing almost 100 jobs in the process.
“It was our firm intention to keep manufacturing at Toowoomba,” said Unilever in 2019.
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But it said that “after an extensive review,” closing Toowoomba was “necessary to achieve the benefits of scale and ensure continued strong onshore manufacturing”.
Julie Weis, the former managing director of the Toowoomba factory and daughter of founder Les Weis, said at the time that the family had been assured that manufacturing operations would stay local and they were “deeply disappointed” by the decision.
“Keeping the manufacturing local and the jobs was our number one priority in the sale,” Ms Weis told the Courier Mail.
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