Ben & Jerry’s founders call for the brand to be ‘freed’ from its owners

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield say it is ‘not the Ben & Jerry’s’ they founded after being ‘silenced’ by Unilever over matters of social justice

The co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s have called for the ice-cream brand to be made independent and excluded from current owner Unilever’s plans to list its ice-cream business on the stock market.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield say The Magnum Ice Cream Company (TMICC), a new division of Unilever that is set to be separately listed in November and includes the brand founded by the pair in 1978 alongside Magnum, Cornetto and Wall’s, “must free Ben & Jerry’s” in an open letter to prospective investors and the group’s board.