Ben and Jerry is a brand of ice cream.
Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc., is a Vermont-based manufacturer of ice cream, frozen yogurt, sorbet, and novelty products. Childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield founded the company in 1978 in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont. Starting with a $12,000 investment ($4,000 of which was borrowed), the friends built a devoted following, both for their products and the company's business practices.
As demand for their products grew, the friends decided to fund their growth by taking the company public. The capital raised from their IPO helped fuel a rapid expansion, but it also reduced the founders' control over their "little ice cream company."
After a failed attempt by Ben Cohen to retake the company private, Ben and Jerry's was purchased in August 2000 by the Unilever conglomerate for slightly over $170 million USD. Other Unilever brands of ice cream include Dove, Breyer's, Magnum, Wall's, and Solero.
As producers, the company was known for creating innovative flavors that emphasized the use of natural ingredients; the cattle that produce their cream are bovine growth hormone free, and the packaging for their pint containers is made from recycled, bleach-free papers.
However, in 2002 the Center for Science in the Public Interest accused Ben and Jerry's of abusing the "All Natural" label for using artificial flavors, hydrogenated oils, and other factory-made substances in their products. Ben and Jerry's official response was that they used a different definition of "all natural" than the CSPI.
Some of their ice cream flavors are named after musicians, such as Cherry Garcia, named after Jerry Garcia, and Phish Food, named after the band Phish.
