• Maike: Before we dive into specifics, I’d like to start with the bigger picture. How do you see the role of businesses in society, and, based on that, what were the thoughts behind founding Ben and Jerry’s?

Ben: I think we’re all starting to understand that business is the most powerful force in our society. It didn’t always used to be that way. Originally, the most powerful force was religion, then it was nation-states, and today it’s business. As the most powerful force, business controls pretty much all aspects of our lives. It controls our lives as employees and customers. It controls our legislation through lobbying, it controls our elections through political donations, it controls the media through ownership.

And all of that is done in the narrow self-interest of business. Traditionally, the narrow self-interest of business has been maximizing profit, and business has traditionally not given any concern to the fallout of that narrow-minded, single-minded approach.

The interesting thing is that business is incredibly political; it just tends to be covert. It doesn’t want people to know that it’s influencing our legislators and our political leaders et cetera. The big difference for Ben & Jerry’s is that we decided to run our business the way the average person on the street would like to see a business run – a business that cares about the community, that cares about improving the quality of life for people, that uses its power to be reparative in terms of the society instead of destruction and essentially externalizing its costs.

At Ben & Jerry’s, we developed a three-part mission statement: a social mission in terms of improving the quality of life in the community, a product mission, making the best ice cream we can, and a financial mission: making a profit. And they’re all interrelated. When we came up with this three-part mission, there was a lot of discussion about which one is primary, and eventually we realized they’re all equal. And when we print them out, we print them out horizontally to indicate that. And essentially, as the business supports the community, and as we put out great ice cream, we end up making a bunch of money.

When we first started, all the experts, and the accountants, and the lawyers were saying: It’s impossible, you can’t do it. If you want to take care of social needs, you do it in the nonprofit sector, and if you talk about making money, you do it 180 degrees on the other side, in the for-profit sector.

When we first started trying to do it, we did run into the problem that if we devoted company time and effort and resources to improving the quality of life, that took away from resources we can put into increasing profitability. Finally, we realized that the solution to the dilemma is to choose those courses of action that have a positive effect on both parts of the mission – on social benefit and on making money.

So we started sourcing our ingredients in a conscious way so that, just by buying them, we were helping to solve social problems. We found a banking relationship with a bank designed to get accounts from outside a decaying urban area and use them to invest in that formerly decaying area to improve it. We have some scoop shops that are owned by nonprofits that are working with at-risk youth. The ways to combine the two are limitless.

And the interesting thing that we discovered is that there's a spiritual aspect to business, just as there is to the lives of individuals: as you give, you receive; as you help others, you’re helped in return. As your business supports the community, the community supports your business. Most people are buying products from companies, from corporations they don’t like – they’re buying products in spite of the values of those corporations. When they have a chance to buy from a company whose values they agree with, they’re really happy. It builds the strongest possible relationship with your customers that you could ever build. It's a relationship based on shared values, and that's pretty deep.

You can see it in what’s going on now with the struggle to keep the social mission at Ben & Jerry’s alive and the struggle to get Ben & Jerry’s owned by socially aligned investors. Jerry put out this statement talking about the problems Ben & Jerry’s is having, and in two days there were, I’m told, around 20 million views. All these companies are spending tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising and PR agencies which are all about trying to get the people to feel good about the company.

What they end up doing is this pretty ephemeral stuff that might move the needle for a little bit, but once the ad campaign is over, it dies. Companies like Ben & Jerry’s that are using their power to improve the quality of life in the community – the community gets it. You don’t have to spend so much money making up stories to make people like your company, you just have to be who you are.

 

• Armin: This is super impressive, Ben, and it really resonates. It’s impressive how you’re realizing companies are such powerful players, and by loving the community, you are loved as well. This kind of spiritual aspect: would it also work if a company realizes, “I just need to do some things for the community so I will increase my shareholder value”? Or does the community sense whether you do it out of shareholder-value interest or because you think it needs to be done?

Ben: You’re talking about some version of greenwashing – trying to make it look like you really care when you don’t, throwing a few crumbs to the community while you screw them with your other hand. No. Your intentions have to be authentic. I mean, authenticity, as even mainstream marketers are starting to figure out, is what consumers are yearning for. What ends up happening is all these exclusively profit-driven companies that don't care about any of these social needs trying to make themselves look like they're authentic. You can’t fake authenticity. They try, but it doesn’t work.

 

• Armin: As you know, we are working with the model of steward-ownership, where money and power are decoupled in the long run so as to ensure that the company remains independent and purpose-driven. In this context, we are talking a lot about ownership and how important it is to have a good ownership design to support your mission and avoid mission drift. So what interests us a lot is what happened after you sold Ben & Jerry's to Unilever? How did it affect things?

Ben: It’s interesting the way you described what Purpose is doing and what their guiding principle is, which is separating power from money. I’m sorry we didn’t know about you guys when the company was being acquired. Purpose wasn’t around, so we did the best we could. We came up with this independent board of Ben & Jerry’s which has legal authority over the social mission of the company, over the quality of the product, and the way the brand is marketed. Unilever, the acquirer, had authority over operations and finance. And that actually worked pretty good for 20 years.

And I think what happened was that over the course of time, management at Unilever churned. The people who we made this agreement with were no longer at Unilever, and the way the people at Unilever see it is that, boy, what kind of cockamamie deal did those predecessors do? That was stupid, and we’re not going to abide by it. So what’s happened is that this independent board – one of whose legal responsibilities was to be in charge of the social mission – has been overruled and stifled by Unilever.

 

• Armin: And that was possible despite the contracts?

Ben: The independent board is suing Unilever. Anything is possible. What happened was that Ben & Jerry’s, under supervision by the independent board, wanted to put out a bunch of social media posts speaking against the genocide in Gaza, speaking in favor of free speech, speaking in favor of DEI, and speaking in support of Black History Month which I didn’t really realize was controversial. And Unilever muzzled those efforts. They’ve essentially usurped the power of the board of directors.

And that's the situation that we find ourselves in now. One, the independent board is suing Unilever. And two, it’s become clear to Jerry and me that after years of trying to work this out, of trying to negotiate, that it’s not possible for Ben & Jerry’s to live out its values if it’s owned by an entity that is not aligned with those values. That’s why we’re now trying to free Ben & Jerry’s and get it owned by a group of investors who support the values of the company.

 

• Maike: If I understand correctly, Jerry has left Ben & Jerry’s. How is it for you, after so many years with him in this journey, to go on without him?

Ben: Jerry is very, very supportive of the company becoming owned by socially aligned investors. Jerry has a really big heart, and everybody has their own tolerance for conflict. This has been an incredible conflict. Jerry has taken it very personally, and it’s just been tearing him apart. So the right move for him was to resign, but I can guarantee you that he’s very supportive of the company becoming independent so it can live out its values.

Jerry and I were friends long before the business started. We met each other in seventh-grade gym class. We were the two slowest, fattest kids in the class, and that formed a pretty strong bond. We continue to be the best of friends. We are, we will be, we have been. And that doesn’t change anything for us personally.

 

• Armin: Ownership is often not visible and only becomes hurtful if it’s not in the right design, so the power of ownership is often overlooked. What is the lesson you’re drawing from this story?

• Armin: What would you say to founders who are starting now and are in a situation like you were decades ago?

Ben: The mainstream business community – and the mainstream accountants and lawyers – are going to tell you that it’s never going to work, that you can’t marry your values and your business. I’m here to say we’ve proven that’s a bunch of bullshit. You can do it. Not only can you do it, but it builds the strongest relationship with your customers that you could ever hope to build.

The other thing I think to understand is that if you’re going to take a stand on something, if everybody already agrees with it, you don’t need to take the stand. By definition, the only things worth taking a stand on are going to be controversial. Not everybody’s going to agree with it. But you don’t need everybody for your business. I think Ben & Jerry’s doesn’t need any more than 5% of the population – probably a whole lot less than that – to be a billion-dollar-business.

 

• Maike: You’re talking about trying to buy back Ben & Jerry’s and free it from Unilever. So if Unilever sells – crossing my fingers – how can you prevent this from happening again? Do you have a plan in mind – also a merger agreement? What are your thoughts?

Ben: There’s been talk about using the Purpose methods. We’re screening potential investors for agreement with the social values of the company. That’s pretty much where we’re at right now.

 

• Armin: The most interesting thing, of course, is what happens if Unilever sells. Do you have enough investors on board? Also, investors may die, children take out the money, or a new management arrives like at Unilever and you have the same problem. Could you give a glance into your ideas? You said Purpose methods – how would you structure a new independent Ben & Jerry’s so this doesn’t happen again? Have you thought about making Ben & Jerry’s foundation-owned – give it to a foundation and have investors hold just economic rights – or trust-owned like Yvon Chouinard did with Patagonia?

Ben: The various methods that you spoke of have all been under discussion. We’re just trying to figure out the best one, and we can use your help.

 

Maike: We would be happy to help in any way we can. So thank you for this interview, Ben.

Ben: Thank you so much for the work you're doing.