When Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield first set up shop in an old petrol station in Burlington, Vermont, in 1978, selling scoops of homemade ice-cream, they wanted to build a company that cared as much about people as profits.
Since then, their tiny ice-cream business has become a global brand whose famous flavours, including Cookie Dough and Cherry Garcia, are sold in 35 countries. Yet, Ben & Jerry’s ethos remains the same: to “make great ice-cream in the nicest possible way”.
It’s a belief that is central to everything the brand does, from its social activism to constant experimentation with new flavours. The ethos inspired Ben & Jerry’s line of non-dairy ice-creams that was launched in the UK in 2017 to a rapturous reception from vegans. The flavours – Chunky Monkey, Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Peanut Butter & Cookies and the new flavour Coconutterly Caramel’d – are just as inventively delicious as the brand’s dairy creations.
For Ben & Jerry’s employees, honouring the goals of its co-founders – who remain advisers to the company since being bought by Unilever in the year 2000 – is vital. “Right from the start, Cohen and Greenfield wanted the business to be a force for good,” says Rebecca Baron, the brand’s social mission manager. “Four decades on, we’re still guided by their values.”
Ben & Jerry’s three-pronged approach – making excellent ice-cream; achieving financial success; and using the brand to make the world a better place – stems back to ideas developed by Cohen and Greenfield in the company’s early days.
One of their most radical founding principles was the idea of “linked prosperity”, where everyone and everything the company was involved with – from the farmers growing its cocoa to the person serving the scoops – should benefit from its success. All the ingredients Ben & Jerry’s uses are fairly traded, and its employees are treated in accordance with its liberal values. “It was one of the first employers in America to give the same benefits to same-sex couples as married [heterosexual] ones,” says Baron.
The company works with social enterprises, such as Greyston Bakery in New York, which supplies the brownies that make the Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavour so enticing. “They employ people with criminal records, homeless people, recovering addicts and vulnerable women – people who are finding it hard to get a job,” says Baron. “They offer subsidised housing and healthcare to their workers.”
Once Ben & Jerry’s popularity began to grow, it quickly realised that it could use its platform to campaign on social issues. It was a discovery born of a David and Goliath tussle with its rival, Häagen-Dazs.
“Greenfield had the idea to pack the ice-cream into pint-sized containers and sell it in convenience stores, but Pillsbury, who owned Häagen-Dazs, didn’t like this at all,” says Baron. “They threatened all their stores with exclusivity clauses, saying they could stock one, but not both. Ben & Jerry’s didn’t have the resources to fight it in the courts, so Greenfield created a one-man picket outside the Pillsbury headquarters. Pictures of him were everywhere. They managed to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people to put pressure on Pillsbury to back down, which they eventually did.”
The same principle is applied to its latest campaigns on issues including climate change, marriage equality, racism and refugees. The brand is currently running a company-wide campaign, lobbying the UK government to allow asylum seekers the right to work. “At the moment, they’re banned, which means people can be living in poverty for years,” says Baron. “We’re using every tool we have as a business to mobilise our fans to help us create systemic change.”
One area the brand is pouring a lot of effort into is reducing its carbon footprint. Its caring dairy programme has more than 300 participating farms in the US and Europe. “The idea is that the farms that Ben & Jerry’s offers support to have to meet high environmental standards,” says Baron. “The company is always working to move into increasingly sustainable farming practices and improve its emissions.”
The launch of its almond milk-based non-dairy range – with more flavours set to arrive in Britain in 2019 – is a way to offer a lower-emission alternative to the increasing numbers of people who aren’t necessarily vegan, but want to make more ethical food choices. “So many people want to reduce their personal carbon footprint, so it’s great to give people that flexibility,” she says.
And for those who are vegan, or lactose intolerant, the range aims to prove that it needn’t mean missing out. One of Ben & Jerry’s key principles is inclusion, which its non-dairy range fits into perfectly. “We wanted to offer people who can’t – or have chosen not to – eat dairy ice-cream, an alternative that is just as good as the dairy version,” she says. “We wanted to make sure they get some love, too.”
Get the inside scoop on Ben & Jerry’s four non-dairy ice-creams at benjerry.co.uk/flavours/non-dairy
