Ben Cohen, one of the two founders of the famous ice cream maker “Ben & Jerry's”, has criticized the new parent company Magnum Ice Cream Company, saying in an interview with CNBC that it is “destroying” the brand.
Magnum, the world's largest ice cream company, is only a week old, but it's already had a history of corporate drama.
Jochanan Senf, the Unilever-appointed CEO of Ben & Jerry's, said the changes to the board's terms of service – including a nine-year term limit, pacing the board's work through “engagement protocols” and an obligation to comply with Magnum's code of business integrity – would strengthen governance and transparency.
Cohen, however, described these measures as “Orwellian”.
“They say they are strengthening the social mission, when in fact they are destroying it. They say they are securing the future of the Board of Directors, when in fact they are dismantling it,” Cohen told financial television CNBC. “It's another desperate attempt to grab power,” he charged.
President “Ben & Jerry's” was the target of an “internal investigation”
By Monday, three executives had been removed from Ben & Jerry's independent board of directors, in a new twist in the conflict between the brand named after its famous founders and its parent company over the brand's social mission.
It's a conflict that newly listed US-listed Magnum inherited from consumer goods giant Unilever when it officially spun off as an independent company last week.
Ben & Jerry's latest decision to amend the Board of Directors' governance rules was intended to “preserve and strengthen the brand's historic social mission and protect its essential integrity,” the company said in a press release.
Anuradha Mittal, the chairwoman of Ben & Jerry's, has been informed that she “no longer meets the criteria to serve” on the board following “internal investigations”, the company said, without providing further details.
The founders of Ben & Jerry's are at loggerheads with the company they sold the business to
“Initially, they tried to get rid of the chairman of the council [independent]making these unfounded accusations that she is 'unfit to exercise her position'. They failed to uphold them, so now they're saying, 'well, it's served too long,'” charges Cohen. “It's arbitrary and it's illegal,” he points out.
Ben & Jerry's, founded in 1978 by Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in a renovated gas station, was acquired by Unilever in 2000 for $326 million in a deal that included a unique clause allowing the brand to maintain its own independent board of directors with authority over its social mission but not operations.
Since 2021, however, the board, as well as founders Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, have grown disgruntled with what they call attempts to “silence” the social mission.
Jerry from Ben & Jerry's left the company in September
In protest, Greenfield announced in September that he would leave the company he co-founded with Cohen nearly 50 years ago.
“It is with a broken heart that I have decided that I can no longer, in good faith, and after 47 years, remain an employee of Ben & Jerry's,” Greenfield, 74, wrote in an open letter posted on social media. He held the role of brand ambassador within the company.
“Standing for values like justice, equity and common humanity has never been more important, and Ben & Jerry's has been silenced and marginalized for fear of upsetting those in power,” he lamented.
Unilever and Ben & Jerry's have been at odds since 2021, when the Vermont-based ice cream maker announced it would halt sales in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Ben & Jerry's later sued its parent company, alleging attempts to silence it, and describing the Gaza conflict as “genocide” — a rare stance for a major American company.
“It was always about more than ice cream — it was a way to spread love and invite others into the fight for a better world,” Greenfield said in the letter announcing his resignation.
