Ben & Jerry's
all about ice cream
Ben & Jerry's is an American ice cream company, a division of the British-Dutch Unilever conglomerate, that markets ice cream, frozen yogurt, sorbet, and ice cream novelty products, manufactured by Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings, Inc., headquartered in South Burlington, Vermont, United States, with the main factory in Waterbury. It is best known as an ice cream brand, founded in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont.
In 1977 lifelong friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield completed a
correspondence course on ice cream making from the Pennsylvania State
University's Creamery. On May 5, 1978, with a $12,000 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 an international 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 and 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, Vermont; the sundae weighed 27,102 pounds. That
same year, the cows on their cartons were redesigned by local artist, Woody
Jackson.
Cowmobile
In 1984, Häagen-Dazs wanted 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.”
favorite flavors
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. 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.
In April 2000, Ben & Jerry's announced its acquisition by British-Dutch
multinational food giant Unilever. Unilever said it hopes to carry on the
tradition of engaging "in these critical, global economic and social missions."
Although the founders' names are still attached to the product, they do not hold
any board or management position and are not involved in day-to-day management
of the company.
In 2000, Jostein Solheim, a Unilver executive from Norway, became the new CEO of the company and had this to say about the transition: "My mantra that I've repeated a hundred times since starting at Ben & Jerry's is: ‘Change is a wonderful thing,'" he said. "The world needs dramatic change to address the social and environmental challenges we are facing. Values led businesses can play a critical role in driving that positive change. We need to lead by example, and prove to the world that this is the best way to run a business. Historically, this company has been and must continue to be a pioneer to continually challenge how business can be a force for good and address inequities inherent in global business."
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 U.S. 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."
Chubby Hubby consists of vanilla malt ice cream swirled with fudge and peanut
butter, and containing pretzel nuggets covered in fudge and filled with peanut
butter. For the month of September 2009, Ben and Jerry's, in partnership with
Freedom to Marry, renamed Chubby Hubby to Hubby Hubby, in celebration of the
legalization of same-sex marriage in the company's home state of Vermont. The
carton featured the image of two men getting married beneath a rainbow.
Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield appeared on the The Colbert Report on March 5, 2007 to promote their new ice cream flavor, Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream, and their grassroots education and advocacy project, TrueMajority.
The company renamed a flavor, Yes Pecan, in reference to Barack Obama's victory
in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. They later decided in January 2009 to
donate all proceeds made on the sale of that flavor to the Common Cause
Education Fund.
On March 2, 2011 Cohen and Greenfield appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
and unveiled their new flavor of ice cream, Late Night Snack, whose carton
features a picture of Jimmy Fallon on it.
flavor lab
The Vermonster is a large ice cream sundae found in Ben & Jerry's "scoop shops", which is served in a "Vermonster Bucket", and consists of 20 scoops of ice cream, a fudge brownie, 4 bananas, 3 cookies, 4 toppings, 4 ladles of hot fudge, whipped cream, and marshmallows. It contains 14,000 calories, and 500 grams of fat.
Free Cone Day is an annual event held between late March and early May, in which Ben & Jerry's scoop shops give out free ice cream cups and cones. The most recent event took place on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 from noon to 8 pm.
samples for visitors
Over one million free cones are given
away each year, prompting the company's ad slogan "Be One In A Million."
Charitable organizations are often present at the stores each year and enjoy a
significant amount of fundraising success. Oftentimes, local celebrities show up
at various stores, promoting the day and the charities there. Sometimes the
event is scheduled to coincide with Earth Day and sometimes volunteers are on
hand with clipboards and voter registration forms to help those who would like
to register to vote.
The first Free Cone Day was held on Saturday, May 5, 1979 by Ben and Jerry as a
customer and staff appreciation event for the first anniversary of their store's
opening.
"The Traveler"
enjoying his sample
Ben & Jerry's was the first
brand-name ice cream to be taken into space aboard the Space Shuttle. Most of
the cruise ships of the Royal Caribbean International have a Ben & Jerry's scoop
shop on board.
Rumors have suggested that Ben & Jerry's supported the defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
who was convicted in 1982 of killing Philadelphia Police officer Daniel
Faulkner. Despite several appeals, Abu-Jamal's conviction has been upheld. As a
result of this alleged support, e-mails claimed that the Fraternal Order of
Police called for a boycott of Ben & Jerry's products. The Ben & Jerry's website
denies that the company has had any connection with the case; however, it adds
that Cohen did sign a petition as a private citizen asking that "the system of
American justice be followed fully in the case."
The company raised controversy in 2006 after releasing a flavor of ice cream
called "Black and Tan." It had named the flavor after the alcoholic drink made
by mixing stout with pale ale. However, outrage stemmed from the fact that Black
and Tans was also a name given to the irregular force of British ex-servicemen
recruited during the Irish War of Independence and renowned for their brutality.
In September 2010, the company agreed to stop labeling their ice cream and frozen yogurt as "all natural." The Center for the Science in the Public Interest, a consumer-advocacy group, had urged Ben & Jerry's to stop labeling their ice cream as "all natural" due to the company's use of corn syrup, alkalised cocoa, and other chemically modified ingredients
Text from Wikipedia
