Ben & Jerry’s co-founder to launch – Business News
One of the lefty co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s is making a Palestine-themed sorbet on his own after mother or father company Unilever allegedly blocked the ice cream giant from releasing the flavour.
Ben Cohen claimed Tuesday that Unilever and its spinoff Magnum Ice Cream Company had “stopped Ben & Jerry’s from creating a flavor for Palestine.”
“So I’m doing what they couldn’t,” he stated as he squashed watermelons into juice in a video posted on X. “I’m making a watermelon-flavored ice cream that calls for permanent peace in Palestine and calls for repairing all the damage that was done there.”
Ben & Jerry’s co-founders Jerry Greenfield and Ben Cohen handing out free ice cream during a get-out-the-vote tour for former Vice President Kamala Harris. Getty Images for MoveOn
Watermelons have turn into a image of Palestinian solidarity – showing on indicators at protests and in social media feedback – because the fruit’s purple, inexperienced, black and white colours match these on the Palestinian flag.
Cohen requested supporters to submit ingredient and pint design options, saying the winner “gets their flavor made and design printed.”
Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever and Magnum didn’t instantly reply to The Post’s requests for remark.
It’s the most recent in a drawn-out battle between the liberal founders of Ben & Jerry’s – a Vermont-based company recognized for funky flavors like Phish Food and Chunky Monkey – and its proprietor Unilever.
Tensions began to brew in 2021, when the ice cream company introduced it might stop gross sales within the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Unilever responded by promoting off Ben & Jerry’s license for the area.
Since then, Cohen and co-founder Jerry Greenfield have accused the mother or father company of muzzling the model’s lefty politics.
A girl holds a watermelon-shaped signal that claims “Free Palestine” during a march in Argentina in August. REUTERS
In November 2024, the impartial administrators of Ben & Jerry’s filed a lawsuit accusing the mother or father company of gagging the ice cream maker from talking out in help of Palestinian refugees.
In a courtroom submitting, the board additionally accused Unilever of abruptly firing Ben & Jerry’s CEO David Stever with out giving board members a probability to interview alternative candidates. Stever began as a tour information for the Ben & Jerry’s manufacturing facility in Waterbury, Vt., in 1988.
The board claimed it was excluded from the appointment course of of new CEO Jochanan Senf – a Dutch Unilever exec – as a result of of its political activism.
The company’s potential to keep an impartial board was a key half of the settlement by Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 to be acquired by Unilever.
Cohen and Greenfield offered Ben & Jerry’s to Unilever in 2000 for $326 million. Adriana – stock.adobe.com
In latest posts on X, Cohen has been urging his roughly 95,000 followers to write to Magnum’s CEO and board.
He lately famous that the federal government shutdown, which has delayed IPOs together with Magnum’s, provides them “a real shot to free Ben & Jerry’s.”
Earlier this 12 months, when Unilever introduced it might spin off its ice cream unit, the company made clear it has no intention of promoting Ben & Jerry’s – regardless of a bid from Cohen and Greenfield.
The duo, childhood buddies from Long Island, NY, created Ben & Jerry’s in 1978. They later offered the model to Unilever for $326 million.
