Iconic Ice Cream Maker Fights for His Life’s Work: Free Ben & Jerry’s

In September 2025, a highly unusual scene unfolded in central London. At a fashionable hotel, the management of The Magnum Ice Cream Company was presenting investors with new growth plans. Outside stood Ben Cohen holding a sign that pointed in a very different direction: “Free Ben & Jerry’s”.

The press photographs travelled around the world. The 74-year-old founder of one of the world’s most iconic ice cream brands was demonstrating against the group to which Ben & Jerry’s now belonged. On his T-shirt, a red heart was being torn in two.

Cohen’s action marked the beginning of the Free Ben & Jerry’s campaign. Nearly a year later, he is trying to unite customers, activists, investors and potential buyers behind a single goal: Magnum must sell Ben & Jerry’s to investors who will protect the company’s social mission.

If he succeeds, an ownership model inspired by Denmark’s tradition of foundation-owned companies could form part of the solution.

The conflict surrounding one of the world’s most activist companies therefore raises a question that reaches far beyond ice cream: Can a company be sold without its purpose eventually being sold along with it?

For around 20 years, the answer appeared to be yes. But the current dispute over Ben & Jerry’s shows how fragile even a carefully constructed safeguard can become when the formal owners and the guardians of the purpose can no longer agree.

A Long, Hard Slog

I speak with Ben Cohen over an unstable video connection. He is sitting on the covered porch of his home in Vermont, wearing a T-shirt, with a backpack on the chair beside him.

The connection freezes intermittently, but the now 75-year-old co-founder speaks energetically whenever the sound and picture return.

I ask how he is holding up in the middle of a fight being waged in the media, the courts, the financial markets and the streets.

“It’s a slog,” Ben replies.

This time, Jerry Greenfield is not by his side. After 47 years, Jerry left his role at the company in September 2025 in protest at what he described as the loss of Ben & Jerry’s independence. He is still Ben’s best friend and fully supports the fight, but he remains away from the battleground, Ben emphasises.

“Jerry describes himself as the most conflict-averse person he knows. And this is a lot of conflict,” Ben says. After a brief pause, he adds:

“It’s not quite as much fun without Jerry.”

Also read: Corporate Activism Under Donald Trump Is a Fight for Survival

The London action was not the result of months of planning, but a spontaneous decision. Ben was in the UK visiting his friend Gordon Roddick, co-founder of The Body Shop, when he happened to hear about Magnum’s investor day.

“I figured, wow, I’ve got to show up for this.”

Ben and Gordon had been talking about Magnum “ripping the heart out of Ben & Jerry’s”. Gordon’s partner, an artist, translated their words into the T-shirt with the torn heart. Soon afterwards, an international campaign had its first image.

Not Your Average Ice Cream

For many Danes, Ben & Jerry’s is first and foremost colourful pints, wordplay and large chunks of chocolate and cookie dough. But the company stood out from the beginning.

Ben Cohen has almost no sense of smell and only a limited sense of taste. He therefore focused on texture and insisted on the large pieces of chocolate, nuts and cake that became a hallmark of Ben & Jerry’s.

When a customer left an anonymous suggestion for raw cookie dough ice cream in the shop’s suggestion box in 1984, Jerry wanted to use small, evenly distributed pieces so that every bite contained cookie dough. Ben insisted on large chunks. If one spoonful contained no dough, the anticipation only made the next more enticing.

As the person responsible for production, it was Jerry’s job to work out how Ben’s ideas could be realised. The standard industrial equipment of the time could not handle the large, soft chunks, so Jerry designed a machine that could.

It was their working partnership in miniature: Ben challenged assumptions about what ice cream should be. Jerry worked out how to make it.

An Ice Cream Brand That Spoke Out

Their unorthodox approach was not limited to the product. Ben & Jerry’s developed a three-part mission in which its product, economic and social missions were equal parts of the same company.

I ask Ben to describe the essence of the conflict with Magnum in a few words, but the connection to Vermont freezes again. When it returns, I repeat the question.

“It’s a struggle for the progressive activist soul of Ben & Jerry’s,” he says.

Since opening its first ice cream shop in a converted petrol station in Burlington, Vermont, in 1978, Ben & Jerry’s has campaigned on climate change, racial justice, refugee rights, peace and US politics. Its activism has not been a layer of communication placed on top of the business. It has been part of the brand’s identity and of the value customers encounter in the freezer aisle.

They received plenty of warnings at the time against mixing business and political positions, Ben says. It would cost them customers and profits. Their experience was the opposite: A company can be profitable while taking a stand for justice. Disagreement is part of the point.

“If everybody already agrees with the stand you’re taking, you don’t need to take that stand to begin with,” Ben says.

He refers to the philosopher Cornel West’s observation that justice is what love looks like in public.

The words “In God We Trust” appear on US currency, Ben notes. But those words do not reflect the priorities of American society.

“In weapons we trust. In money we trust,” he says.

If Americans truly trusted in God, Ben argues, they would help the weakest and love their neighbours. Instead, the country spends enormous sums preparing for war. Ben & Jerry’s must continue to be able to express views of that kind, even when they are controversial and inconvenient for the owner. Today, however, those views are being blocked, he says.

According to Ben, Magnum is trying to preserve the commercial benefit of the story of a progressive brand while restricting the activism that created that story. He calls the result “virtue signalling” and a shadow of the former Ben & Jerry’s.

Magnum rejects the suggestion that Ben & Jerry’s has abandoned its social mission. In an email sent after our deadline, The Magnum Ice Cream Company states that the social mission has received more than €500 million since Unilever’s acquisition in 2000 – according to the company, more than the purchase price for Ben & Jerry’s.

The group also writes that the company’s commitment to using “its business, brand and voice to advance its social mission is strong and that will never change”.

I Did Not Sell the Company

To understand how Ben Cohen ended up outside a London hotel protesting against the owners of the company he had co-founded, we need to go back more than 25 years.

In 2000, Unilever offered USD 43.60 per share for the publicly listed company, a total of approximately USD 326 million. It was a high offer, and the board recommended the sale, which subsequently received overwhelming shareholder support.

Ben & Jerry’s was originally owned by the company’s neighbours in Vermont, Ben explains. At one point, one in every 100 families in the state owned shares.

The company later needed more capital, and Ben & Jerry’s was listed nationally. When Unilever approached, Ben and Jerry opposed a sale and worked with friendly investors to find an alternative. But the group could not raise the necessary capital.

When I ask Ben whether he now regrets selling the company, he immediately corrects the premise.

“I didn’t sell the company. It was a public company. But yes, I regret that the company was sold.”

The distinction matters to him. He rejects the story of two entrepreneurs who built a values-led brand and then cashed in through a major exit.

“There’s come to be this mentality that the purpose of starting a business is to sell it to some big company and get a big payday. I don’t think that is the right way to approach business. When you create a business and develop a consumer following, and then sell that business to some huge company, you’re letting your customers down. You’ve misled your customers,” Ben says.

Instead, a company should be able to generate long-term profits and allow its owners to make money through dividends, he believes.

A Safeguard That Held for 20 Years

Once the sale could no longer be prevented, Ben, Jerry and the board tried to protect what could not be captured in an ordinary spreadsheet.

The acquisition agreement created an unusual division of authority: Unilever assumed primary responsibility for finance, operations and the areas not expressly assigned to Ben & Jerry’s own board. The independent board, in turn, retained primary responsibility for the social mission and the brand’s essential integrity.

Among other things, the board received authority over product quality, marketing and use of the trademark. The agreement also included commitments concerning the funding of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation.

The idea was that a new owner could operate and develop the business, but without the freedom to rewrite the purpose and identity that had made the company valuable.

I ask Ben how confident he was at the time that the safeguards would hold.

“I was not confident at all. I was doing the best I could possibly do,” he says.

If the litigation is successful – and I believe that it will be – they will have to reinstate the board they dismantled.

Ben Cohen

Ben was pleasantly surprised. For around two decades, Unilever honoured the agreement, according to him, and the social mission grew under the group’s ownership. At the same time, the independent board resisted attempts to lower the quality of the ice cream to increase profits, he says.

The structure was therefore not empty legal theatre. It worked long enough to demonstrate that a global corporation and an activist subsidiary could, in fact, coexist. It held for as long as the parties were willing to make it work.

Israel and Palestine Exposed the Cracks

The weaknesses in the legal structure became fully apparent in 2021.

The independent board decided that Ben & Jerry’s products should no longer be sold in the occupied Palestinian territories. The stated reason was that the sales were inconsistent with the company’s values. The official announcement said that Ben & Jerry’s would remain in Israel through a different arrangement.

The decision triggered a political storm. Israel’s then prime minister, Naftali Bennett, called Unilever CEO Alan Jope and publicly warned of serious consequences.

“What I’m told is that the head of Israel called up the head of Unilever and said, ‘If you don’t get that ice cream back here, we’re going to kick all the Unilever businesses out of Israel,'” Ben says.

The Israeli government confirmed the conversation at the time, but not the specific wording recounted by Ben.

The following year, Unilever sold the Israeli business to its longstanding local licensee, Avi Zinger. The rights to the Hebrew and Arabic versions of the Ben & Jerry’s name were transferred to his company, Blue & White Ice-Cream Ltd.

Ben & Jerry’s itself does not own or operate the business in Israel. Product decisions are made by the local owner and operator, Magnum states in its response to Impact Insider.

The sale meant that the ice cream could continue to be sold in both Israel and the West Bank, much to Ben’s regret.

“Unilever did it on its own, without consulting with the board, so that essentially the product could still be sold there,” Ben says.

The independent board went to court to block the sale. The case ended in December 2022 with a confidential settlement between the board and Unilever.

Ben and Jerry were not themselves members of the board, but they believed the conflict had been resolved.

“We felt like the parties had come to terms. They had both agreed to the settlement, and we thought it was going to work,” Ben says.

A Conflict That Kept Growing

The truce did not last.

Ben and the former independent board members have since accused Unilever, and later Magnum, of blocking Ben & Jerry’s when the company sought to speak out on some of the most contentious issues of the day.

“The company wanted to make a statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. It was prevented from doing that. It wanted to support the students who were protesting the slaughter. It was prevented from doing that. And currently it is prevented from calling out Trump on what are the biggest attacks on the values of Ben & Jerry’s since the company was founded,” Ben says.

Magnum has rejected the allegations of censorship and previously stated that, over the years, the group has been involved in discussions concerning only around two per cent of the brand’s social media posts.

The conflict escalated further when Magnum removed independent-board chair Anuradha Mittal in December 2025 and introduced new nine-year term limits, causing two other longstanding members to leave.

Magnum has justified the changes by referring to corporate governance, conflicts of interest and requirements to comply with the group’s code of conduct. The former members contend that the changes constitute an unlawful circumvention of the 2000 agreement.

The matter is currently before the courts. The litigation was initiated by the then independent board, which accused Unilever of breaching its agreements and restricting the company’s social mission. The former board members have since asked the court to invalidate the changes Magnum made to the board.

Ben has no doubt about the outcome.

“If the litigation is successful, and I believe that it will be, they will have to reinstate this board that they dismantled,” he says.

The legal position is more complicated. One week before our interview, a federal judge significantly narrowed the case and dismissed most of the claims. The ruling did not determine whether all the allegations were true. Instead, it addressed which claims the former board members were legally entitled to pursue.

The judge did, however, allow the former board members’ challenge to the new eligibility requirements for board membership to proceed. Ben believes the case could result in the former members being reinstated, but the court has not ruled on that question.

Two days before the interview with Ben, Ben & Jerry’s announced that three new independent board members had been appointed. According to the company, they will strengthen the social mission.

Ben acknowledges their qualifications but disputes their legitimacy. In his view, they cannot lawfully replace members who were never lawfully removed.

A parallel dispute surrounds the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation. The company has announced that a new organisation will take over its philanthropic grant-making with the same financial commitment as before.

In its response to Impact Insider, the group writes that the new governance structure will support “independence, transparency, and long-term resilience”. The leadership of the existing foundation, by contrast, says that it has been deprived of its funding and may be forced to close.

Both sides therefore say they want to preserve the social mission. They disagree over who has the right to manage it.

Turning It Into Bad Business

The litigation is only one element of the pressure intended to persuade Magnum to sell Ben & Jerry’s.

The company is not for sale. Magnum has made that very clear. Ben is not satisfied.

He is working with a group of potential buyers who, according to Reuters, are considering an offer of between USD 1.5 billion and USD 2 billion.

“The most important thing right now is to get Magnum to see the light and understand that really it is in their own financial interest to sell Ben & Jerry’s,” he says.

Magnum, however, has a strong financial argument for keeping the brand. Ben & Jerry’s is one of the group’s four leading brands and, according to Magnum’s half-year results, recorded growth of 9.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2026.

The conflict cannot yet be seen in the brand’s total sales. But Ben believes a different development lies behind the growth.

According to him, sales of the familiar pints have declined in the United States, while growth is mainly coming from new product formats. Magnum does not publish separate sales figures for the pints, but itself highlights new ice cream sticks and sandwiches as important drivers of growth. The group also states that Ben & Jerry’s has gained market share in North America.

Ben expects a diluted social mission and declining ice cream quality, driven by short-term profit considerations, to damage the brand in the coming years.

Unable to force Magnum to sell, he is trying to change the group’s calculation through growing pressure from shareholders and consumers.

I try to reduce the strategy to a single question. Just as I ask it, Ben’s voice is drowned out by an enormous noise. It was one of “those horrible fighter bombers” flying over the house, he explains when the noise has subsided.

I repeat my question:

“So what you are saying is that it is bad business for Magnum to hold on to Ben & Jerry’s, and you are going to help make sure that it becomes bad business?”

“That’s correct,” he replies.

After the interview, however, he adds an important clarification. In his view, Magnum is already undermining Ben & Jerry’s. The campaign’s task is to make the damage visible to shareholders and consumers.

His argument to shareholders is financial:

“I am trying to explain to Magnum’s shareholders that the way the company is managing Ben & Jerry’s is actually reducing the value of the brand, in breach of Magnum’s duties to its shareholders,” he elaborates after the interview.

Magnum rejects that account. In its response to Impact Insider, the group points out that since Unilever’s acquisition, Ben & Jerry’s has expanded from four to more than 40 countries, while revenue has increased more than fivefold.

Ben uses stronger words when addressing consumers. He calls the intervention in the independent board an “unethical and illegal power grab” and says the campaign must draw public attention to what he describes as the destruction of Ben & Jerry’s heart and soul.

The campaign has focused in part on the Netherlands, where Magnum is headquartered. There it is trying to mobilise the public and investors through advertisements, poster campaigns and petitions calling for a sale.

At the same time, Ben is targeting the Magnum brand itself.

“We have started a campaign to boycott Magnum,” he says.

He mentions Charli XCX and Bella Hadid, both of whom have appeared in campaigns for Magnum. Bella Hadid has been a prominent advocate for Palestinian rights for several years, while Charli XCX has supported humanitarian work for Palestinian children and shared a call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“We’ve been involved in letting Magnum’s influencers know about the conflict. Several of them – including Charli XCX and Bella Hadid – have expressed support for Palestinians and opposition to the slaughter, while representing Magnum, which has prevented Ben & Jerry’s from doing the same,” Ben says.

The campaign is now urging them to use their platforms to demand that Magnum stop restricting Ben & Jerry’s statements about Gaza.

According to Ben, the outcome of the campaign depends on whether it can mobilise enough customers, activists and investors.

“I am not able to save Ben & Jerry’s on my own. But if enough people get involved with the campaign, we will succeed. If people think it is a shame but do not lift a finger, we will fail,” he says.

The Danish Connection

If the campaign succeeds in wresting Ben & Jerry’s away from Magnum, an ownership model inspired by Denmark’s tradition of foundation-owned companies could form part of the solution.

A sale would resolve only the current conflict.

A group of values-aligned investors may be able to acquire Ben & Jerry’s, but what happens when they eventually want to sell their stakes again?

Without a structure governing a future exit, the company risks simply ending up with another owner that is unwilling to put the company’s purpose first.

Ben and the potential buyer group are now working on that future ownership model. The precise structure has not yet been decided.

I ask whether there is anything he knows today that he wishes he had known when the company was sold and the safeguards for its social mission were constructed.

“When the company was sold in 2000, we did the best possible job we could. Today, better safeguards and better models of ownership and governance have been developed that, in my view, would have protected the company’s social mission better, assuming that the company had to be sold,” Ben says.

He mentions Patagonia and foundation-owned companies such as Novo Nordisk and Carlsberg. As Impact Insider has previously reported, Patagonia’s ownership model was inspired by the Danish tradition of enterprise foundations.

Also read: When Patagonia Gave Itself Away

I ask whether a foundation-owned or related model would have been the right solution for Ben & Jerry’s.

“Yes, absolutely,” he says.

Ben and Jerry always regarded themselves as stewards of the company on behalf of society, he explains.

“We were trying to operate it in the interests of the wider community.”

Under the classic Danish enterprise-foundation model, the controlling interest is held by a commercial foundation. The ownership is therefore not resold by a private owner, but managed for the long term in accordance with the foundation’s purpose.

Also read: A Silver Tsunami Is Hitting Global Business. Could the Danish Foundation Model Be the Answer?

Ben and the buyer group have spoken with the lawyer who advised Patagonia about how a future independent Ben & Jerry’s could be structured.

“We are still trying to refine the right structure for us.”

The Fight is Bigger Than Ben & Jerry’s

I ask Ben why he is devoting so much effort to persuading Magnum to sell a growing billion-dollar brand instead of starting a new purpose-driven ice cream company and designing its ownership correctly from the beginning.

“It took about 50 years to build this company, and I don’t have 50 years left,” he says.

Ben & Jerry’s has achieved a position that a new company cannot replicate: global recognition, distribution, employees, suppliers, a philanthropic history and half a century of credibility as an activist company.

When the brand works with NGOs, Ben says, it gives them both greater reach and greater credibility.

In his view, the fight is therefore not only about the right to determine the future of the company he helped create.

Ben & Jerry’s has become evidence that a company can be both profitable and politically inconvenient. If even this brand can retain its words and its history but lose the freedom to act, it sends a signal to the entire movement of purpose-driven and activist companies.

“If you cut off the head of the pioneering company, or, even worse, rein it in and water it down until nothing remains but pretty words, it hurts the whole movement,” Ben says.

Ben & Jerry’s rejects the suggestion that its social mission is disappearing.

The company says it continues to have a dedicated team working on activism and social movements, and that a new organisation for the Foundation’s grantmaking will be announced soon.

That is the larger story behind the man with the sign outside the London hotel and the man on the porch in Vermont.

Ben Cohen is, of course, fighting for Ben & Jerry’s and for his own account of the company’s history. But he is also fighting over the definition of corporate activism: Is purpose something an owner can use for as long as it benefits the brand, or is it a source of authority that must also be able to challenge the owner when doing so becomes costly and inconvenient?

No contract, foundation or trust can eliminate that question. But the ownership model can determine who is entitled to answer it.

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Impact Insider submitted the article’s factual information and criticism to The Magnum Ice Cream Company. Relevant parts of the company’s response have been incorporated into the article. Below, we reproduce the parts of Magnum’s written response that the company approved for publication. The company subsequently provided additional information, which is reproduced below together with the original response.

Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board Members

Please find enclosed the announcement as issued by Ben & Jerry’s on its new independent board members. Read the press release.

The Occupied Palestinian Territories

Ben & Jerry’s does not own or operate the Ben & Jerry’s business in Israel. The Hebrew and Arabic language versions of the Ben & Jerry’s name are owned and operated by Blue & White Ice-Cream Ltd. Product decisions in that market, including locally developed flavors, are made by the local owner and operator. For more information, please refer to the public statement.

Regarding the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation

Ben & Jerry’s commitment to using its business, brand and voice to advance its social mission is strong and that will never change. Ben & Jerry’s is fully committed to funding grantmaking that supports grassroots movements and progressive change, as well as maintaining our commitment to Vermont. There will be a new organization announced soon which will follow the same financial commitment as our previous Foundation setup. The future model will have governance designed to support independence, transparency, and long-term resilience. We will share more details when they are available.

FURTHER RESPONSE FROM THE MAGNUM ICE CREAM COMPANY

Ben & Jerry’s is not for sale and is thriving as part of The Magnum Ice Cream Company; combining the unique benefits of our scale, expertise and reach as the world’s leading ice cream business and our unwavering commitment to supporting the three-part mission in line with the original Merger Agreement.

Since it became part of Unilever, and now The Magnum Ice Cream Company, Ben & Jerry’s footprint has grown from 4 to over 40 countries, revenue has grown more than fivefold, and our investment has stepped up innovation.

In H1 2026, Ben & Jerry’s grew mid-single-digit across the period, with performance accelerating in the second quarter – for both the Americas and Europe & ANZ – with new stick and sandwich formats bringing new consumers to the brand. Social reach and engagement continued to grow, and our annual Free Cone Day was the most successful yet, with more than one million scoops shared with consumers.

These growing sales show that The Magnum Ice Cream Company is helping Ben & Jerry’s significantly expand its impact supported by its social mission, which has received over €500m since the acquisition; more than was paid to buy the business.

RESPONSE FROM BEN & JERRY’S

Ben & Jerry’s commitment to using its business, brand and voice to advance its social mission is strong and that will never change.

Grantmaking is one part of Ben & Jerry’s broader social mission. The company’s three-part mission brings together product, economic and social impact, with the idea that the business itself can be a force for positive change – we call it Linked Prosperity.

There’s a dedicated team doing this work every day. Carleen Pickard, Ben & Jerry’s Global Social Mission Director, leads the social mission team alongside activism managers who work directly with movement partners and communities. We work closely as partners with the NGOs and campaign groups we support, so we can be absolutely sure that we are supporting them in a way that truly helps further the movement. This part of our social mission work sits within the business itself.

The approach is movement-led. The role Ben & Jerry’s tries to play is not to speak for movements, but to use the brand’s reach, resources and platform to help advance work that partners and communities are already leading.

Recent examples of active projects include Razz Up!, focused on civic participation and democracy, where we took a campaign called Fudge Fascism to DC in honour of the Voters Rights Act, plus continued work with the Last Prisoner Project around cannabis justice; and longstanding advocacy around the rights and dignity of refugees and people seeking asylum.

RESPONSE FROM UNILEVER

Unilever was given an opportunity to respond to the information and allegations concerning its former ownership of Ben & Jerry’s, but declined to comment or address their factual accuracy.