The Vermont-based ice cream maker's co-founder Jerry Greenfield has stepped away from the beloved company after nearly 50 years, according to a message from his fellow founder Ben Cohen.
Cohen’s post included what he called a message from Greenfield, in which the departing executive called it one of the “hardest and most painful decisions” of his life.
Greenfield stated that the company had been restrained by Unilever and that its independence to speak out on global issues was now “gone.”
“If the company couldn’t stand up for the things we believed in, then it no longer deserved to exist as a company at all,” Greenfield wrote.
This move came even after a merger agreement designed to safeguard the company’s social mission, Greenfield noted.
“This autonomy was preserved in no small part because of the special merger agreement” which both founders had negotiated with the conglomerate, Greenfield explained.
The ice cream maker and its parent firm declined to comment to a media inquiry from the news agency.
Last week, Cohen said that amid disagreements with the parent company, the brand had tried to engineer a transfer to investors at a fair market value of $1.5 to $2.5 billion, but the proposal was rejected.
The multinational and the ice cream brand have been at odds since at least recent years, when the ice-cream maker announced it would halt sales in the contested West Bank. Ben & Jerry’s has also taken legal action against its corporate parent over alleged attempts to silence it and has called the situation in Gaza “atrocities.”
