Ben Cohen

So yeah, I would say that that was a mistake.

But because Jerry and I were so resistant to the sale and because Unilever wanted it so much,

they agreed to establish an independent board of directors for Ben and Jerry's.

So they didn't buy a brand, they bought a company.

And it was to be run as a wholly owned autonomous subsidiary that has its own board of directors.

And that board of directors has legal authority

over the social mission, the quality of the ice cream, the use of the trademark, and a few other things.

And really, the only authority that Unilever has is over finance and operations.

How does Magnum come into this picture?

Maybe it was two years ago, Unilever announced that it wanted to sell off their entire ice cream division.

It's about 100 brands all around the world.

So when that happened,

Jerry and I went to them because we had been having conflicts with Unilever and said, well, as long as you're getting rid of your whole ice cream business, why don't you separate out Ben & Jerry's so that we can get it sold to some socially aligned investors?

And Unilever refused to do that.

Eventually what they did was they spun off their entire ice cream operation to the Magnum Corporation.

So the Magnum Corporation is now the owner of Ben & Jerry's.

Ben and Jerry's, you know, doing stuff that hasn't been done before, going against the mainstream.

has always been a struggle.

There have always been obstacles to overcome.

When the business first got sold to Unilever, it was an incredibly difficult, depressing time of my life.