An Elton John concert this summer in Vermont was a landmark for the flamboyant singer-songwriter — it meant he had performed in all 50 of the US states. The Vermont-headquartered ice cream business Ben & Jerry's marked the occasion with a limited edition flavour after consulting the star on his favourite ingredients. All profits from Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road flavour ice cream went to the Elton John Aids Foundation.
Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield described the flavour as "an outrageous symphony of decadent chocolate ice cream, peanut butter cookie dough, butter brickle and white chocolate chunks". Its name — a pun on one of the artist's most famous songs — joins a rich roll call of outlandish monikers in the company's product portfolio, such as Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, Wavy Gravy and Chunky Monkey.
The way-out combination of flavours, wacky names and altruistic behaviour chime with Ben & Jerry's hippy credentials. The company famously began life in the late 1970s after Greenfield and his old school friend Ben Cohen took a $5 correspondence course in ice cream-making and set about building the business by sometimes unconventional means, among them annual free scoop days when they gave their ice cream away for nothing. Back in 1985, long before suc things were fashionable, the founders set up the Ben & Jerry's Foundation, through which workers are encouraged to make the world a better place by tackling social and environmental problems.
So far, so fresh and quirky. But in 2000 Ben & Jerry's was sold to consumer products giant Unilever, owner of mainstream brands such as Cornetto, Marmite, Peperami, Pot Noodle and PG Tips. How could the zany, inventive spirit of the brand be kept alive under ownership by a corporate colossus?
"When Unilever acquired us they realised they had something special," says UK head Helen Jones, a 14-year veteran of Ben & Jerry's. "They allow us a degree of autonomy and encourage us to be creative and inventive. They are happy for us to carry on being innovative in areas such as sustainability and development of flavours."
Research and development responsibility rests with Arnold Carbone and his team in Vermont. Carbone has been with the company for two decades and glories in the job title "conductor of bizarre and D". As should by now be obvious, comically strained wordplay is part of Ben & Jerry's identity.
To keep abreast of dessert trends and developments, Carbone and his colleagues visit different cities on occasional flavour tours to check out what is happening in neighbourhood markets, stores and restaurants. Back in the laboratory, the team experiments with around 50 new flavours a year, adapting ingredient quantities, chunk sizes and other variables until happy with the results. Promising concoctions are put out for consumer testing, as are the often weird and wonderful names (this is the company that brought us Bovinity Divinity and The Gobfather, after all). Members of the public are also encouraged to submit recipes through a "suggest a flavour" area on the brand's website.
All of this leads to the launch of around five flavours a year — and a consensus that the company has sustained its creativity. Unilever, which has cut costs in other parts of its business by disposing of several under-performing assets, such as cheese brand Boursin, seems happy to allow Ben & Jerry's a continuing high degree of operational autonomy. It has encouraged it to invest in certifying fair trade flavours and, under Unilever's ownership, the amount contributed to the brand's charitable foundation has actually risen.
Strengthened or stifled?
However, being bought by a larger corporation is far from a guarantee of success. US organic dairy products business Stoneyfield Farm has, since 2003, been 85% owned by French giant Danone. Last year it launched a range of Stony yoghurts and desserts in the UK, which were quietly withdrawn after they failed to take off.
Keith Goffin, Cranfield school of management's professor of innovation and new product development, warns that corporate culture has a direct bearing on innovation and that creative spirit is easily crushed when circumstances alter, such as when an independent company is bought by a large corporation.
Mindful of such risks, Cadbury has chosen not to interfere too much with the culture of organic fairtrade chocolate brand Green & Black's, which it snapped up in 2005.
"The amazing thing is that Cadbury has in large measure left us alone," says Green & Black's managing director Dominic Lowe. "We still operate out of an attic in Waterloo and we've still maintained that small-business culture, where you innovate as a way to survive."
Weblinks
Ben & Jerry's: benjerry.co.uk
Green & Black's: greenandblacks.com
