Ben & Jerrys : History

In 1977 lifelong friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield completed a correspondence course on ice cream making from the Pennsylvania State University. On May 5, 1978, with a $12,000[2] investment the pair opened an ice cream parlor in a renovated gas station in downtown Burlington, Vermont. In 1979, they marked their anniversary by holding the first-ever free cone day, now a nationwide annual celebration.
In 1980, Ben and Jerry rented space in an old spool and bobbin mill on South Champlain Street in Burlington and began packing their ice cream in pints. In 1981, the first Ben & Jerry’s franchise opened on Route 7 in Shelburne, Vermont. In 1983, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was used to build “the world’s largest ice cream sundae” in St. Albans (city), Vermont; the sundae weighed 27,102 pounds. In 1984, Häagen-Dazs tried to limit distribution of Ben & Jerry’s in Boston, prompting Ben & Jerry’s to file suit against the parent company, Pillsbury, in its now famous “What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?” campaign. In 1987, Häagen-Dazs again tried to enforce exclusive distribution, and Ben & Jerry’s filed its second lawsuit against the Pillsbury Company. In 1985, the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation was established at the end of the year with a gift from Ben & Jerry's to fund community-oriented projects; it was then provided with 7.5% of the company’s annual pre-tax profits. In 1986, Ben & Jerry’s launched its “Cowmobile”, a modified mobile home used to distribute free scoops of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in a unique, cross-country “marketing drive”—driven and served by Ben and Jerry themselves. The “Cowmobile” burned to the ground outside of Cleveland four months later, but there were no injuries. Ben said it looked like “the world’s largest baked Alaska.”[3]
In 1988, the pair won the title of U.S. Small Business Persons Of The Year, awarded by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Also this year, the first brownies were ordered from Greyston Bakery, which led to the development of the popular Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavor.[4] In 1992, Ben & Jerry’s joined in a co-operative campaign with the national non-profit Children's Defense Fund; the campaign goal was to bring children’s basic needs to the top of the national agenda. Over 70,000 postcards were sent to Congress concerning kids and other national issues.


Ben & Jerry's ice-cream branch at the United Square Shopping Mall in Singapore.
In April 2000, Ben & Jerry's announced its acquisition by multinational food giant Unilever.[5] Unilever said it hopes to carry on the tradition of engaging "in these critical, global economic and social missions." Although the founders are still engaged with the company, they do not hold any board or management position and are not involved in day-to-day management of the company.[citation needed]
In 2001, Ben & Jerry's U.S. completed transition to "Eco-Pint" packaging, which packaged all pint flavors in environmentally-friendly unbleached paperboard Eco-Pint containers, a decision it later reversed. The use of brown-kraft unbleached paperboard had been a critical first step toward a totally biodegradable pint made without added chlorine. However, due to what they described as increasing supply, quality, and cost challenges, Ben & Jerry's discontinued their use of the Eco-Pint in 2006, transitioning to a pint container made out of a bleached paperboard that it said was more readily available with superior forming characteristics.
On Earth Day in 2005, when a vote in the U.S. Senate proposed the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, Ben & Jerry's launched a protest by creating the largest ever Baked Alaska, which weighed 900 pounds, and placed it in front of the US Capitol Building.
In March 2009, "CyClone Dairy" launched an advertising campaign and a website to promote its milk products, which purportedly came exclusively from cloned cows. On April 1, 2009 (April Fool's Day), Ben & Jerry's announced that it was behind this fake company. Ben & Jerry's had created the tongue-in-cheek hoax to raise awareness of the increasing presence of products from cloned animals within American food, and to campaign for a tracking system of cloned-animal products. The hoax was revealed on April Fool's Day with the message: "We believe you should have the right to choose which foods you eat – and not to eat cloned foods if you don’t want to. And that's why Ben & Jerry’s believes we need a national clone tracking system, so people and companies can know where their food is coming from."
For the month of September in 2009, Ben & Jerry's temporarily changed the name of one of its best-selling ice creams, "Chubby Hubby", to "Hubby Hubby", in celebration of the legalization of gay marriage in its home state of Vermont. The new "Hubby Hubby" tub features a picture of two men getting married, as well a picture of a rainbow


Back in ’66, in a school gym class, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield found they hated running but loved food. Years later in ’78, Ben had been fired from a series of jobs while Jerry had failed for the second time to get into medical school. So, armed with a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making, they opened their first scoop shop in a dilapidated gas station in Burlington, Vermont.

They soon became popular in the local community for the finest all natural ice cream. Ben had no sense of taste so he relied on what he called ‘mouth feel’, so big chunks of chocolate, fruit and nut became their signature. While they disagreed at times over the chunk size, they did agree that they wanted to enjoy themselves – as Jerry put it ‘if it’s not fun, why do it?’.

In the early days the boys were pretty bad at book-keeping. After two months they closed the store and hung a sign that said ‘we’re closed to figure out whether we’re making any money’. And they weren’t. But they learned a lot and by 1979, began wholesaling pints of ice cream out of Ben’s VW campervan. The rest, as they say, is history.