Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand, has stepped down from the company he started 47 years ago citing a retreat from its campaigning spirit under parent company Unilever.
Greenfield wrote in an open letter late Tuesday night — shared on X by his co-founder Ben Cohen — that he could no longer “in good conscience” remain an employee of the company and said the company had been “silenced.”
He said the company’s values and campaigning work on “peace, justice, and human rights” allowed it to be “more than just an ice cream company” and said the independence to pursue this was guaranteed when Anglo-Dutch packaged food giant Unilever bought the brand in 2000 for $326 million.
Cohen’s statement didn’t mention Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza, but Ben & Jerry’s has been outspoken on the treatment of Palestinians for years and in 2021 withdrew sales from Israeli settlements in what it called “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Unfortunately all good things come to an end in America. They get bought out by a company who only cares about the rich and their shareholders and hate their customers.
We are all stuck in a cycle that will never change unless a giant meteor hits or something. No good deed goes unpunished in a capitalist country.
you wrote that like you know about -the meteor- which is strange because I didn’t think anyone else knew about it.