Jerry Greenfield Of Ben & Jerry’s Exits Company—Says Ice Cream Maker’s Activism Is Being ‘Silenced’

17 Sep 2025 by Siladitya Ray · Forbes

Topline

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 social activism.

Key Facts

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.”

Crucial Quote

“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.

How Has Ben & Jerry’s Parent Company Responded?

In a statement shared with various media outlets, the Magnum Ice Cream Company—Unilever’s ice cream unit which is being spun off into a separate 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.”

What Do We Know About Ben & Jerry’s Clash With Unilever?

Last year, Unilever announced plans to spin off its ice cream business, which includes brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Walls, Cornetto, Talenti and Magnum. Ben & Jerry’s founders, however, had called for Unilever to set their ice cream brand “free” amid growing clashes over their social activism. In November, Ben & Jerry's Independent Board sued Unilever, alleging the conglomerate had “silenced” its attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees. The complaint also alleged that Unilever has “threatened to dismantle the Independent Board and sue the board members individually,” if the company promoted a message calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Earlier this month, Greenfield and Cohen issued a joint statement calling for Ben & Jerry's to be excluded from the Magnum Ice Cream Company spin-off plan and instead be allowed to “operate once again as an independently owned company”. The statement said: “We no longer believe that Ben & Jerry's belongs under the umbrella of a corporate entity that fails to support its founding mission, and which is reducing the company's value by undercutting one of the critical reasons why customers love and support the brand…We believe that the founding values are central to what Ben & Jerry's is, and cannot simply be discarded out of convenience or under political pressure.”