Ben & Jerry’s co-founder says Unilever blocked Palestine-themed ice cream

The co-founder of ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s says his parent company Unilever prevented him from launching an ice cream flavor expressing “solidarity with Palestine.”

Ben Cohen announced that he would independently create the new flavor as part of a personal series highlighting reasons the company has been banned from public disclosure.

Ben & Jerry’s is known for its activism on social issues and consistently speaks out on political, environmental and humanitarian issues, including the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The BBC has contacted Unilever for comment.

Mr. Cohen’s statement deepens a long-running dispute between the world-famous ice cream maker and British packaged goods giant Unilever, which has owned Ben & Jerry’s since 2000.

The co-founders said Unilever and its spun-off ice cream arm Magnum were unlawfully preventing their company from “fulfilling its social mission”.

Mr Cohen he said in an Instagram video On Tuesday, he said he had created a new watermelon-flavored sherbet and asked for ideas on the name of the product and what ingredients should be added.

Watermelon has become a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians due to its colors of red, green, black and white, similar to the Palestinian flag.

The American entrepreneur said that Ben & Jerry’s was prevented from producing the dessert by Unilever.

“I’m doing what they can’t do,” Mr. Cohen says from his kitchen cubicle. “I make watermelon-flavored ice cream that calls for lasting peace in Palestine and repair of the damage done there.”

Ben & Jerry’s in 2021 Refused to sell its products in areas occupied by Israel. The company’s Israeli operation was sold by Unilever to a local licensee, allowing the ice cream to continue being sold in the occupied West Bank.

The dessert line will be developed under Mr. Cohen’s activist ice cream brand, Ben’s Best, he told the press. The flavor was produced independently of Ben & Jerry’s, the statement said.

Ben’s Best was first founded in 2016 with a “Bernie’s Back” flavor in support of former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Mr. Cohen said Ben & Jerry’s would develop other ice cream flavors that address issues that Unilever has prevented from disclosing publicly.

In September, co-founder Jerry Greenfield resigned from Ben & Jerry’s after decades with the company, citing concerns that the company’s independence was compromised following Unilever’s decision to restrict his social activism.

“Jerry has a really big heart and this dispute with Unilever was breaking him,” Ben Cohen said at the time.

“My heart directs me to continue to work within the company, to defend its independence, thereby realizing the social mission and values ​​on which the company was founded and has protected it for over 40 years,” he told the BBC’s Prime Minister programme.