Ben & Jerry's has had its voice silenced, says co-founder as he quits

The Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield has stepped away from the ice-cream brand after nearly 50 years, claiming it has lost its independence and accusing its parent company, Unilever, of having “silenced” its social mission.

- Mark Sweney

Greenfield said in a letter posted by his co-founder, Ben Cohen, that he could no longer “in good conscience” remain an employee of a business that he argued had been muzzled by the UK-listed Unilever, despite an agreement protecting its social mission when it was taken over in 2000.

“It is profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone,” he said. “If the company couldn’t stand up for the things we believed, then it wasn’t worth being a company at all.”

Greenfield, who along with Cohen has no control over operations but had remained an employee to help maintain its founding social mission, called it one of the “hardest and most painful decisions” he had ever made.

Greenfield’s resignation is the latest development in a bitter dispute since Unilever backtracked on an agreement allowing Ben & Jerry’s to not sell ice-cream in occupied Palestinian territories, which had been heavily criticised in Israel.