Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield announced his exit from the ice cream maker late on Tuesday, alleging that parent firm Unilever had taken away the company’s independence and “silenced” its activism on progressive issues.
The company’s other co-founder Ben Cohen shared Greenfield’s announcement on X, which said: “It’s with a broken heart that I’ve decided I can no longer, in good conscience, and after 47 years, remain an employee of Ben & Jerry’s.”
Greenfield said the ice cream maker’s “independence to pursue our values,” which was guaranteed to him “when Unilever bought the company…is gone.”
The statement then attacked President Donald Trump’s administration, saying “our country’s current administration is attacking civil rights, voting rights, the rights of immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community.”
Greenfield said standing up for “justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important,” but alleged that “Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power.”
The Ben & Jerry’s co-founder then added: “If I can’t carry those values forward inside the company today, then I will carry them forward outside, with all the love and conviction I can.”
In addition to sharing Greenfield’s statement, Cohen wrote: “His legacy deserves to be true to our values, not silenced” by the Magnum Ice Cream Company, and followed it up with the hashtag “#FreeBenAndJerrys.”
“Love, equity, justice. They’re part of who Ben and I are, and they’ve always been the true foundation of Ben & Jerry’s. From the very beginning, Ben and I believed that our values and the pursuit of justice were more important than the company itself. If the company couldn’t stand up for the things we believed, then it wasn’t worth being a company at all,” Greenfield said.
In a statement shared with various media outlets, the Unilever-owned Magnum Ice Cream Company—Ben & Jerry’s parent company—said: “We disagree with his perspective and have sought to engage both co-founders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerry’s powerful values-based position in the world.”
