Ben & Jerry’s founder lashes out against parent Magnum’s board changes

Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen criticized parent company Magnum Ice Cream Company in an interview with CNBC, saying it “destroyed” the brand.

Magnum, the world’s largest independent ice cream business, is only a week old but has already experienced a lifetime of corporate drama.

Unilever-appointed Ben & Jerry CEO Jochanan Senf said the changes to board conditions, including a nine-year term limit, setting a board cadence with “engagement protocols” and a requirement to comply with Magnum’s business integrity rules, would strengthen governance and transparency.

But Cohen called it “Orwellian.”

“They said they were strengthening the social mission while actually eliminating it. They said they were future-proofing the Board of Directors while actually eliminating it,” Cohen told CNBC. “This is another desperate power grab.”

Three directors were ousted from Ben & Jerry’s’ independent board on Monday, adding to a new dimension to the dispute between the brand named after its well-known founders and its parent company over the brand’s social mission. It’s a debate that newly listed Magnum has inherited from the consumer giant Unilever’s last week when it officially became an independent company.

Ben & Jerry’s said in a statement that the goal of Ben & Jerry’s latest move to change board management is to “preserve and enhance the brand’s historic social mission and preserve its fundamental integrity.” Press release.

Without providing further details, the company said that one of the board members, Chairman Anuradha Mittal, who was reported to be ineligible, was told after “internal investigations” that she “no longer met the criteria to serve” as a board member.

“Initially, they were trying to eliminate the chairman of the general assembly. [independent] The Board, citing false allegations that he was ‘unfit to serve’. “They couldn’t prove it, so they say he stayed in office too long,” Cohen said, adding, “This is arbitrary and illegal.”

Ben & Jerry’s was sold to Unilever in 2000 in a deal that allowed the brand to have an independent board of directors and the right to make decisions regarding its social mission. But since 2021, the board of directors, as well as founders Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, have been growing dissatisfied with what they call attempts to “silence” the social mission.

Unilever and now Magnum protects Primary responsibility for all matters not related to the social mission or matters expressly delegated to Ben & Jerry’s board of directors, including financial and operational aspects.

CNBC has reached out to Magnum and Unilever for comment. Unilever said Ben & Jerry’s’s social mission went beyond what was agreed in 2000 and posed material reputational and business risks to the company.

not for sale

Unilever and Magnum have repeatedly said Ben & Jerry’s is not for sale.

Ben & Jerry’s is one of the ice cream group’s four global power brands, along with Heartbrand, Magnum and Cornetto. Ben & Jerry’s will add 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to group revenue in 2024, making it the third-largest revenue generator among the group’s portfolio of more than 100 brands. The four brands combined accounted for 82% of the group’s total full-year revenue.

Unilever first announced plans to spin off its ice cream unit in March last year. Speaking to CNBC’s Squawk on the Street program last week, Magnum CEO Peter ter Kulve said, “We needed to really focus on ice cream,” highlighting how the company managed to grow both market share and volumes.

The pure ice cream stock is up about 10% since it went on sale on public markets in Amsterdam and New York on December 8 and is now worth about 9 million euros. The company has set a revenue growth target of between 3% and 5% starting in 2026.

However, Cohen, who still works at the brand, does not see any benefit in remaining part of the ice cream group of the brand he founded in 1978.

“They’re being short-sighted, but I also think they don’t understand,” he said of the administration. “They don’t understand that Ben & Jerry’s’s value is tied to its position as being at the forefront of businesses that seek the greater good of society rather than maximizing profits.”

“Investors would be much better off if Magnum finally sold this asset, which they were in the process of devaluing, and instead took the money and bought other middle-of-the-road brands, because that’s what they’re good at,” he added. “There’s a lot of money to be made in middle-of-the-road, but they should stick to their knitting and try not to force Ben & Jerry’s to become one of those middle-of-the-road brands.”

In September, Cohen and Greenfield offer #FreeMeAndJerrys calls for their parent company to be allowed to “become an independent company with socially aligned investors, once again free to honor its social mission and live up to its brand values ​​without compromise.”

The campaign aims to encourage a group of investors who believe in the social mission to buy back the brand.

“We have such a group, they are ready,” Cohen said, adding that Unilever and now Magnum have refused to disclose the necessary financial information that investors need to make a rational offer. Cohen declined to name the investors.

Unilever said in its third-quarter earnings report that Ben & Jerry’s grew in the mid-single digits, supported by the continued success of new dairy products, non-dairy flavors and newly launched innovations such as Scoopapalooza, but did not disclose other financial information by brand.

Peace, love and ice cream

Ben & Jerry’s has a three-part mission: social mission, product mission, and financial mission, according to Cohen; These are all equally important and interrelated. “This is something that people raised in the traditional Unilever system cannot understand. It took us a long time to understand this… and they are trying to turn us into just another piece of frozen mush.”

“It is not possible for Ben & Jerry’s to sustain the values ​​that have made Ben & Jerry’s the brand it is today without ownership by a group of investors who truly support the social mission rather than trying to destroy it,” Cohen said about the brand whose motto is “peace, love and ice cream.”

Magnum CEO Ter Kulve said The Financial Times wrote earlier this month that Cohen and Greenfield “should hand it over to the next generation.”

But Cohen says this isn’t about him personally, it’s about protecting the company’s values. “Values ​​are timeless,” he said.

“I have no problem turning the company over to this group of investors who support the values…and if Magnum truly supported the social mission, I would have no problem with them doing so either.”