Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream

image from sfweekly

We love when successful businesses use their power to help make a difference in the world. Ben and Jerry's ice cream has always been one of our favorite tasty treats, but our love for them goes beyond the ice cream. Ben and Jerry moved to Burlington, VT in 1978 because it was a college town with no ice cream parlor, they figured no competition would help their business blossom. The pair held social and political events at their store aimed at the college crowd, and business began to boom. In 1980, they began packaging their ice cream for sale in a stores. Once Ben and Jerry began to taste success, they did the unthinkable for young businessmen...they held a public auction of the company's stocks in Vermont. Their idea was for their community to 'get a taste of the action,' as their business was beginning to succeed as well as gaining capital to invest in more equipment for producing ice cream. In 1984, Häagen-Dazs tried to limit Ben and Jerry's distribution by threatening to pull their product out of any store that would carry Ben and Jerry's. As you can imagine, this did not settle with the pair. They immediately launched the "What's the Doughboy Afraid of Campaign?" and became the faces of the little guys getting squashed by big business. The media storm that followed helped the pair gain recognition not only because of the Häagen-Dazs ordeal, but also allowed them to share their important philosophies and ideologies of how a business should be run.  In 1985 the Ben and Jerry Foundation was created and received 7.5% of their annual pre-tax profits to go towards community oriented projects. In 2000 the pair sold the company to food giant Unilever under one condition, to keep going with their mission to give back to the community through the Ben and Jerry's Foundation, as well as sourcing all milk from Vermont cows. Though they don't oversee the company anymore, Ben and Jerry are both active in the Ben and Jerry Foundation. Ben lobbies in Washington to increase funds for education by taking a minuscule amount of funding from the military. He uses cookies to demonstrate how much funding the military is getting vs. how much funding education is getting.

Click here to see what Ben and Jerry are fighting for these days and what you can do to help. What's your favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry's? We like Phish Food, but you probably already knew that! :)