The RIP part, well, you’ll see what I’m getting at by the end of the episode.
I wanted to dig into this story for a while now because, like most of you, I knew the outline — you know, two hippy-type guys who did things a bit differently, who were never really interested in money or success, and yet they built one of the biggest and best-known ice cream brands in the world.
But the details of how they did this — through just being totally authentic, following their sense of fun, getting a lucky break, and then, when they become successful, doing everything they can to spread the wealth, to develop a different type of business — but eventually big business catches up with them.
And while the ending is sad for Ben and Jerry, I just love this story for so many different reasons.
The Two Ne’er-Do-Wells
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were born four days apart in March 1951 and grew up in Merrick, Long Island.
They first met in junior high school, in gym class because, according to Ben, they were the “two slowest, fattest kids”.
And Jerry notices Ben because Ben starts arguing with the coach, being a bit of a smart ass.
Jerry loved this because he was the complete opposite. As he later said, “I always followed the rules.”
And that was their partnership for life, the balance — Ben the outgoing risk taker, Jerry the quieter, more reserved one.
After school they go different ways.
Jerry studies pre-med and wants to become a doctor, but after graduating he gets rejected from various medical schools and ends up working as a lab technician.
Ben meanwhile moves around, drives taxis, works as a janitor, gets big into pottery.
By 1977 the two of them were living together in New York. They're in their mid-twenties. Their friends are getting proper jobs and starting careers, while Ben and Jerry are, in Ben's words, the “two ne’er-do-wells”.
So they decide to start something together.
They both like food and so they send away for a correspondence course for just $5 on how to make ice cream, and then in 1978, with $12,000 in savings and a small loan, they opened Ben & Jerry’s in an abandoned petrol station in Burlington, Vermont, close to the University of Vermont.
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade
And they started making this very rich ice cream by hand and sold it alongside soup and crêpes, with a hand-painted sign out the front in big block letters: BEN & JERRY’S HOMEMADE.
The hot food doesn’t sell too well, but the ice cream is bringing people back — because it’s a bit different. Not only is it richer and creamier than the supermarket stuff, but it also has big chunks of chocolate and nuts and other stuff.
And the reason for this is because Ben has a very poor sense of smell, which means his sense of taste isn't great either.
So they make the flavours a bit stronger and put in these big chunks so that Ben can actually taste and feel the difference.
And the timing is pretty good as well because America is just discovering expensive or premium ice cream.
So for a bit of context, up until the 1950s, the big manufacturers were going the other way — cheaper ingredients with more air whipped into the product, and more air means more ice cream from the same amount of ingredients, so it's cheaper to make.
But then you have this Polish immigrant in the Bronx called Reuben Mattus.
Now his whole family had been involved in the ice cream business, he understands it well, and with the ever-increasing amounts of cheap ice cream taking over the market, Mattus decides to do the exact opposite.
Better ingredients. More butterfat. Much less air.
So the ice cream is thick and dense and creamier.
And then he gives it this completely made-up name: Häagen-Dazs (HAA Gen Daz).
It means nothing.
He wants something that sounds Danish, sophisticated and expensive. He even puts a map of Denmark on the carton. He charges a premium price for it and it works.
By 1978, Mattus was franchising it, expanding into dozens of scoop shops across major cities nationwide. And so other premium ice creams started to emerge around this time.
But it's worth pausing here and contrasting the different styles between Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s, because they are so different in every single way.
Häagen-Dazs was smooth and creamy, Ben & Jerry's was full of chunks — but then there’s the marketing.
Häagen-Dazs — made up to create the illusion that this is some sort of exotic foreign ice cream. They have a map of Denmark on the carton, when in fact it’s made in the Bronx.
So this is marketing 101 in a way — a form of manipulation, pretending to be something you’re not.
Then you look at Ben & Jerry’s — it’s simply named after the two guys.
The picture on top of their pint container was not a map of Scandinavia but a photograph of the two of them, in the words of Time magazine: “a picture of the two bespectacled, bushy-haired owners, who look like refugees from a ’60s commune.”
So they have this authenticity — and that wasn’t calculated. That was just who they were.
They got into the business for fun, they wanted to enjoy themselves, and so there was no pretence, no manipulation.
And the reason I say it wasn’t calculated is because they brought this sense of fun into everything they did — and it feeds into how they run their business.
I just love it, it’s so organic and natural.
Fun Becomes the Brand
So, for example, straight after opening, to get customers in the evening during summer they show free movies on the wall beside the shop.
In winter, when selling ice cream in Vermont is obviously not the easiest business in the world, they came up with the promotion that they called pop-see-dee-biz-wee, which meant “Penny Off Per Celsius Degree Below Zero Winter Extravaganza.”
Basically, the colder it gets, the cheaper the ice cream gets.
On the first anniversary in 1979 they gave away free cones all day.
That became Free Cone Day, which they still do to this day.
Every autumn they hold something called the Fall Down, with apple-peeling competitions, lip-sync contests and Ben & Jerry look-alike competitions.
And the big finale is when a shirtless Ben lies across two chairs with a cinder block on his stomach, dressed as an Indian mystic called “Habeeni Ben Coheeni”, and Jerry comes out with a sledgehammer and smashes the block to pieces.
So this sense of fun, this quirkiness and authenticity, it works, and of course it does. People love authenticity.
On a good day, the shop is getting up to 1,600 customers.
Local restaurants begin asking if they can buy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and they realise that this is something they can grow.
So Ben gets into the car and starts driving around Vermont selling it, and he's good at it because pretty soon they have around 200 wholesale customers, 23 employees and they’re making roughly 100 gallons of ice cream a day.
The TIME Break
And then in 1981 they got a very lucky and very big break.
TIME magazine is doing a cover story about this premium ice-cream craze that is taking off across America.
And it really is taking off.
The overall ice-cream market isn't growing very much at all. But the premium stuff is, and from zero a few years previously now accounts for roughly 11% of the market.
Häagen-Dazs is absolutely flying. It has 89 ice-cream shops around America and more are opening, and it was also making inroads into supermarkets and convenience stores.
And new competitors are appearing everywhere with names like Frusen Glädjé and Alpen Zauber — but of course these are American-made, just trying to sound fancy.
Ben & Jerry’s isn’t even on the radar at this time, but this is when they get lucky — because one of the writers of the Time article has a daughter in the University of Vermont. She loves Ben & Jerry’s and she persuades her father to visit their store, and as a result they are included in the article.
And to give you an idea of how big a deal it is to be featured in Time — back in 1981 Time had weekly sales of 4.4 million copies and an estimated readership of 25–30 million people each week.
And Ben & Jerry’s not only is included in the article, but the article opens with:
“What you must understand at the outset is that Ben & Jerry’s, in Burlington, Vt., makes the best ice cream in the world.”
Now, if you keep reading, TIME says similar things about the other premium ice creams.
That's actually the joke. Everybody thinks their expensive ice cream is the best.
And look, every business needs a stroke of luck like this, but I think you also need to take into account the well-known truism: the harder I work, the luckier I get.
Because the thing is, Ben & Jerry are actually working hard on their brand — all those events, Free Cone Day, movie night etc.
Yes, they’re having fun, but in doing so they’re building a very strong authentic brand, and a very loyal customer base who evangelise the brand — just like the Time magazine writer’s daughter.
So suddenly people outside Vermont know about this chunky premium ice cream run by two hippies.
The wholesale business increases — revenue hits $2 million, then doubles again to $4 million by the following year.
And they keep leaning into this very Ben & Jerry’s way of getting publicity.
In 1983, a small Vermont town that was struggling economically came up with an idea to get some attention: build the world’s largest ice-cream sundae.
They ask Ben & Jerry’s for help.
And Ben and Jerry go all in.
They build this enormous 11-foot-high sundae, loaded with whipped cream, strawberries, cherries, chocolate, nuts, fruit and maple syrup.
It weighs more than 13 tonnes.
And both the town and Ben & Jerry’s get huge publicity out of it.
Get a Scoop of the Action
But their success has caused a problem — they don’t have the infrastructure in place to meet the increasing demand.
They need a new factory, so they need to raise funds, but, as you’d expect, they don’t go down the normal route.
They find this little-used securities exemption which allows them to sell shares publicly as long as they only sell them to Vermont residents.
They call the fundraising campaign “Get a Scoop of the Action.”
1,800 people in Vermont invest, taking 17.5% of the company, and they raise $750,000, which they then use to build this new factory.
But the factory runs $600,000 over budget and at the same time sales have more than doubled in 1985 to $10 million — so already the brand-new factory is looking too small.
They need more money, and this time they decide to float the company on NASDAQ.
But before the flotation they set up the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation and commit 7.5% of the company’s pre-tax profits to it. The money from the foundation goes to local and grassroots organisations.
Now, giving away 7.5% of pre-tax profits was unprecedented — their bankers were telling them that no one would buy into a company that gave away that much of their profits.
But they went ahead and raised $5 million, valuing the company at roughly $20 million.
Of course their growing success brings them directly into conflict with the biggest name in premium ice cream.
Häagen-Dazs.
What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?
By the early 80s Häagen-Dazs was doing around $115 million a year in sales, so Pillsbury, the huge food company best known for the Pillsbury Doughboy mascot, buys it and Reuben Mattus walks away with $70–$80 million.
Then in 1984 Ben and Jerry got this urgent call from two large distributors who told them that they needed to meet for reasons that they can’t discuss over the phone.
So they meet in this dark corner of a restaurant at Logan Airport in Boston.
And the distributors tell them Häagen-Dazs has basically told them, if you continue carrying Ben & Jerry’s, Häagen-Dazs will cut them off.
And the distributors say, look, we like you, we like the ice cream, but we can’t lose Häagen-Dazs.
Now, there is nothing illegal about telling a distributor: if you sell our product, you can't sell somebody else's.
The problem comes when the company doing that is already dominant, and there are only a limited number of distributors available.
Because then you're not just protecting your own business. You're stifling competition. So there are antitrust issues.
So Ben & Jerry’s sued Häagen-Dazs and Pillsbury.
Of course Pillsbury has billions of dollars and Ben is worried they could simply keep them tied up in court until they run out of money.
So while they do hire a very good lawyer, they also take their case to the public, and man, they do such a great job.
First, they come up with a brilliant slogan.
“What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?”
Jerry flies to Minneapolis and stands outside Pillsbury headquarters holding a homemade sign with those words on it.
Then they go everywhere with it.
They fly banners over sports stadiums.
They put ads on buses showing giant Doughboy hands squeezing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
They take out an ad in Rolling Stone asking people to help “two Vermont hippies fight the giant Pillsbury corporation”.
Suddenly the story is everywhere, so they get loads of free publicity that paints Ben & Jerry’s as the underdog and Pillsbury as the big corporate bully.
Eventually Pillsbury settles and Häagen-Dazs stops pressuring distributors.
When Success Stops Being Fun
But all of their growth and success doesn’t sit well with them.
Jerry actually left the business and moved down to Arizona. As he said: “It got to the point where it was too big for me. It wasn’t as personally rewarding”.
But he did come back a few years later and became Director of Mobile Promotions — basically going out meeting people, giving away ice cream and more or less promoting the spirit of the business, because he realised that while he didn’t like running the business, he still loved the company.
Ben also started questioning his motives.
He realised “I’m not an ice cream man anymore. I’m a businessman.”
But then he starts thinking, well, why can't we use the power of the business itself to promote the things we believe in?
And they're not completely alone in this.
Around the same time, Patagonia is giving money to grassroots environmental groups, and Anita Roddick is starting to use The Body Shop to campaign on things like whaling and environmental issues.
So there is this small group of fairly unconventional founders beginning to say: a business doesn't just have to sell stuff and make money.
It can actually stand for something as well.
And Ben & Jerry’s really leans into that idea.
The packaging, the flavours, the advertising — all of it starts becoming a platform for their political and social views.
Cherry Garcia, Cookie Dough and the White House
Then in 1987 they launched what became one of the most important flavours in the history of the company.
Cherry Garcia, named, obviously, after Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead — the flavor was suggested by a customer.
They send the first eight pints to Jerry Garcia and he apparently says: “As long as they don’t name a motor oil after me, it’s fine with me.”
And it becomes one of the biggest flavours Ben & Jerry’s ever launches.
Then in 1988 the Reagan administration named Ben and Jerry the U.S. Small Business Persons of the Year.
So they’re invited to the White House.
Jerry wears his one suit. Ben doesn’t even own a suit and turns up in a waiter’s jacket from a vintage shop and, from the podium with Reagan right beside him, Ben criticises government priorities and argues that some military spending should instead be used to help people.
That’s pretty ballsy.
In 1991 they launched Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough — again, the idea comes from a customer.
And people go mad for it — it becomes their biggest-selling flavour.
By 1994 revenue was just under $150 million.
It’s now gotten to the size that Ben feels they need a more experienced executive to take the CEO job.
But of course a good CEO will expect to be well paid, and in Ben & Jerry’s they had this rule that the highest-paid person can earn no more than five times what the lowest-paid full-time employee earns.
So they have to drop that rule.
In terms of advertising the CEO position, again they do it differently.
They run a national essay contest asking people why they should get the job.
More than 20,000 entries come in.
Now they’re not totally crazy — they also hire a professional headhunter and initially they hired a former McKinsey consultant, but he didn’t last long, and then they ended up hiring a guy called Perry Odak.
And he’d worked in the gun industry, so a very strange choice for such a socially conscious company.
The Price of Going Public
By 1999 sales reached around $237 million.
So the business itself is still growing.
But the share price is weak.
Part of the problem is timing. This is right in the middle of the dot-com boom and Wall Street is obsessed with technology companies, not ice cream.
But Ben & Jerry’s also has pretty thin profit margins.
They’re giving 7.5% of pre-tax profits to the Foundation.
They’re paying relatively high wages.
They’re paying premium rates to Vermont farmers.
All of which fits perfectly with what Ben and Jerry believe in.
But Wall Street looks at it and thinks: this company could be making more money.
I mean, yeah, it could, but, like, you really got to ask yourself — is it all about money?
You know, here are these two guys who have started a great business, they pay and treat their employees and suppliers really well, they produce a fantastic product, they give money from the company to good causes — that sounds like a great business to me.
And of course if they were a private business, they would be able to keep going, but once you float and become a public company, you’re exposing yourself.
So with the share price down, Ben worried that somebody is going to come in and buy the business cheaply.
He puts together a consortium of investors, with Unilever also involved, to take the company private and keep control of the social mission.
But details of the plan leak.
And once people realise Ben & Jerry’s might actually be for sale, everything changes.
Other buyers start circling.
A bidding war begins.
And eventually Unilever decides it doesn’t want a minority stake anymore.
It wants the whole company and offers $43.60 a share, more than double where Ben & Jerry’s stock had been trading only a few months earlier — valuing the company at $326 million.
Now legally, Ben & Jerry’s probably could have fought this, but there was also the very likely outcome that turning down that much extra money would mean years of litigation.
Ben owns about 12% of the company so he gets $39 million, while Jerry has about 3% and gets roughly $10 million.
And if you were one of those ordinary Vermonters who invested at the very start, you would have gotten thirty-seven times your money back.
Unilever Comes Calling
Now, as you’d expect, the money was never the key priority for Ben and Jerry.
Once they knew that they couldn’t stop the acquisition from happening, their focus is on protecting what the company stands for, and so they negotiate a deal that Unilever agreed to — and this allowed for an independent board to oversee the brand and its image.
Unilever is able to choose the brand’s chief executive, but even that person is supposed to defer to Ben & Jerry’s independent board when it comes to maintaining “the social responsibility aspects of the company,”
The foundation is also protected, along with commitments around employees, suppliers and charitable spending.
Why does Unilever agree to all of this?
Because the social mission is not some little side project.
It is part of what Unilever is buying.
It makes sense that they would want to continue to harness that part of the business — if they rejected it, it would undermine the value of the brand itself.
Cohen described the sale as follows: It’s like the company is a child who has moved out of the house and is now on their own. You hope that your child will have the values that you tried to instill.
And while there were some teething problems for the first few years after the acquisition, up until 2021, the relationship between Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s was pretty solid.
For example, in 2011 Ben & Jerry’s publicly backed Occupy Wall Street.
Then in 2016, the company backed Black Lives Matter.
So the social mission was still very much alive.
Israel, Palestine and a Breaking Point
But then in 2021 Ben & Jerry’s moves into an issue that is on a completely different level.
Israel and Palestine.
And just to be clear — this is more than two years before the Hamas attacks of October 2023 — Ben & Jerry’s issue is that they don’t want their ice cream being sold in Occupied Palestinian Territory, internationally recognised as an illegal occupation.
And also to be clear, they are not pulling out of Israel, they just don't want their ice cream being sold in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
They released a statement that included the following:
“We are the founders of Ben & Jerry's. We are also proud Jews... But it's possible to support Israel and oppose some of its policies, just as we've opposed policies of the U.S. government.”
But this creates a huge problem for Unilever.
Israel’s then-prime minister publicly threatens “severe consequences” for Unilever if the plan goes ahead.
Some US states started taking action against Unilever investments.
So in June 2022 Unilever sold the Israeli Ben & Jerry’s business and the local trademark rights to the existing licensee in Israel.
Which means Ben & Jerry’s can continue to be sold throughout Israel, including the occupied territories.
And of course Ben & Jerry’s board is furious and the directors sue Unilever.
The case is eventually settled at the end of 2022.
As part of the settlement Unilever agrees to give $20 million over ten years to a fair-trade company working with Palestinian farmers.
But this has obviously put a huge strain on the relationship.
The Magnum Spin-Off
And in 2024 Unilever announced that it is spinning off its entire ice-cream division into a new company that’s called Magnum.
Ben wants to take his business back, which would involve raising between $1–$2 billion, but Magnum weren’t interested.
Why would they be?
Ben & Jerry’s is the crown jewel of this new business — by 2024 Ben & Jerry's revenues were $1.28 billion.
So now we’re in 2026.
The independent board that was supposed to protect the social mission is essentially dismantled.
The 7.5% of pre-tax profits that is supposed to go to the foundation — some of that has now been frozen in a dispute that started with Unilever and has continued with Magnum.
And while Magnum says Ben & Jerry’s still speaks out on social issues and they reject the idea that the brand has been silenced, I mean bullshit.
Yeah, they’ll continue to advocate and put their name behind social issues as long as it continues to make them money.
And it will work for now because there are still plenty of progressive, social liberals out there, kind of like me, who support the same causes that are on the Ben & Jerry's website.
But the fact is that without Ben & Jerry’s actual involvement, or at least an independent board made up of true believers who share the same values, Magnum’s activism and, as a result, Ben & Jerry’s the brand's current activism, and also everything that the brand actually stood for, is now just a corporate strategy.
That's why I have the RIP in the episode title.
RIP
It’s a shame really.
I really feel for Ben & Jerry.
They built the company out of a sense of fun and adventure, it was so authentic.
And even as it grew they did their best to do the right thing, to pay their workers and suppliers well, to give a nice chunk of their profits to fund local causes and to call out injustice whenever they saw it.
And look, I know that there are a lot of people who don’t agree with their politics, and that’s fine.
But their underlying belief, as Jerry wrote in their book Double Dip, is as follows: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As you give, you receive. Or, to put it in a more 'businesslike' way: one hand washes the other."
And I understand we live in the real world, and because people are just the way they are — me included — most businesses don’t work the way that Ben & Jerry’s did.
But can you imagine how much better everything would be if we did do business by that code?
So yeah, idealistic, naive, but Ben and Jerry did their very best to live by that code, so I’ve got nothing but admiration for them.