Ben & Jerry’s cofounder leaves agency amid dispute with Unilever over Gaza | Business and Economy News | USAEMALL.com

Jerry Greenfield says he could no longer ‘in good conscience’ continue working for a company that had been ‘silenced’.

Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Jerry Greenfield has retired after nearly 50 years, accusing the United Kingdom-based parent company Unilever of silencing the ice cream brand’s social mission, particularly regarding Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, according to his business partner Ben Cohen.

In an open letter addressing the Ben & Jerry community that was shared by Cohen on social media platform X on Wednesday, Greenfield called it one of the “hardest and most painful decisions” he had ever made.

Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have clashed since 2021, when the Vermont-based company said it would stop sales in the occupied West Bank as doing so was “inconsistent with our values”.

The brand has since sued its parent company over alleged efforts to silence it and described Israel’s war on Gaza as “genocide”, a rare stance for a big US company.

At the time, a Unilever spokesperson said, “Our heart goes out to all victims of the tragic events in the Middle East. We reject the claims made by B&J’s social mission board, and we will defend our case very strongly. We would not comment further on this legal matter.”

Greenfield said he could no longer “in good conscience” continue working for a company that had been “silenced” by Unilever, despite a merger agreement meant to safeguard the brand’s social mission.

“That independence existed in no small part because of the unique merger agreement Ben and I negotiated with Unilever,” he wrote in the letter.

Both men are known for their progressive activism.

Cohen was arrested in May for disrupting a United States Senate hearing to protest Washington’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Nearly 65,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war, following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel.

A Magnum Ice Cream Company spokesperson said on Wednesday that it disagrees with Greenfield’s perspective and has sought to engage both cofounders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerry’s powerful values-based position in the world. The spokesperson also said it was grateful to Greenfield for his role in cofounding Ben & Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency.

Last week, Cohen said the brand had attempted to engineer a sale to investors at a fair market value between $1.5bn and $2.5bn amid tensions with Unilever, but the proposal was rejected.