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(Reuters) – Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield, whose name helped shape the popular ice cream brand, has quit the company, his partner Ben Cohen said on Wednesday, deepening the rift with parent Unilever.
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In an open letter addressing the Ben & Jerry community that was shared by Cohen on social media platform X, Greenfield said that the Vermont-based company has lost its independence since UK parent Unilever curtailed its social activism.
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Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have clashed since 2021, when the Chubby Hubby maker said it would stop sales in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
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The brand has since sued its parent over alleged efforts to silence it and described the Gaza conflict as “genocide,” a rare stance for a major U.S. company.
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Greenfield said he could no longer “in good conscience” continue working for a company that had been “silenced” by Unilever, despite a merger agreement meant to safeguard the brand’s social mission.
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“That independence existed in no small part because of the unique merger agreement Ben and I negotiated with Unilever,” he wrote in the letter.
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A Magnum Ice Cream company spokesperson said that it disagrees with Greenfield’s perspective and has sought to engage both co-founders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerry’s powerful values-based position in the world.
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Unilever did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
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Last week Ben Cohen said the brand had attempted to engineer a sale to investors at a fair market value between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion amid tensions with Unilever but the proposal was rejected.
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(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Harikrishnan Nair and Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
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