In the latest bid to cleave Ben & Jerry’s from its parent company, Unilever, co-founder Ben Cohen is attempting to buy it back.
Cohen is making moves to gather investors for a potential buy-back, according to the Wall Street Journal, a step that would sever ties with Unilever 25 years after it bought the Vermont ice cream brand — and following a churning, years-long battle centered on Israel.
“In the year 2000, Unilever loved us for who we were,” Cohen told the Journal. “Now we’ve gone separate ways in our relationship. We just need them to set us free.”
The move is the latest in a saga of icy relations between the Jewish-founded creamery and Unilever. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would stop selling in “Occupied Palestinian Territory” — a boycott of West Bank settlements that prompted an outcry among many Jewish groups and a spate of legal challenges in states with legislation against Israel boycotts.
Cohen and co-founder Jerry Greenfield called the accusation of antisemitism following the announcement “painful” and “absurd.”
About a year after the announcement, Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever reached a deal to continue selling their pints in Israel and the West Bank. But Ben & Jerry’s later came out against the decision, writing in a post on X that selling their products in Israeli settlements was “inconsistent with Ben & Jerry’s values.”
The independent board of Ben & Jerry’s advocates for a range of progressive causes, and the fight with Unilever has periodically resurfaced in recent years. In November, Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever, accusing it of censorship and intimidation over its stances on the war in Gaza.
Last month, Ben & Jerry’s accused Unilever in Manhattan federal court of axing its CEO Dave Stever over the brand’s social activism. The corporation denied the allegations, saying it had supported the brand but that its recent advocacy had evolved into “one-sided, highly controversial, and polarizing topics that put Unilever, B&J’s, and their employees at risk,” according to Reuters.
Cohen’s action comes one year after Unilever announced that it would spin off Ben & Jerry’s along with its other ice cream brands. But Unilever has rebuffed Cohen’s efforts, saying that it would not sell Ben & Jerry’s as a stand-alone business, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Ben & Jerry’s is a company with a soul,” Cohen said to the Wall Street Journal. “Business is the most powerful force in our society, and for that, it has responsibility to the society.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
