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How Ben & Jerry’s Got Bought Out Without Selling Out
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How Ben & Jerry’s Got Bought Out Without Selling Out

Knowledge at Wharton·Knowledge at Wharton Staff·about 1 month ago
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When people hear the name “Ben and Jerry’s,” they think of three things: First, the high-quality ice cream, heavy on the mix-ins and the butterfat; second, the pun-riddled names of flavors such as Cherry Garcia, Karamel Sutra or Americone Dream; and third, the company’s longstanding social, environmental and corporate justice missions. But when co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield agreed to sell the business in 2000 to Unilever, a multinational food giant, plenty of people expected that those missions wouldn’t survive. To a remarkable degree, they were mistaken. In a recent interview with Katherine Klein, vice dean of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, current Ben & Jerry’s CEO Jostein Solheim talked about how the ice cream company has managed to hold onto its original social missions, despite its absorption by Unilever. An edited transcript of the conversation appears below.…

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