‘It ain’t the same’: inside the bitter battle to free Ben & Jerry’s

Ben Cohen says there are ‘millions of people who support Ben and Jerry’s and support its social mission’. Composite: The Guardian/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenBen Cohen says there are ‘millions of people who support Ben and Jerry’s and support its social mission’. Composite: The Guardian/Getty ImagesBusiness‘It ain’t the same’: inside the bitter battle to free Ben & Jerry’sBen Cohen says his ice-cream company has been silenced by corporate ownership – and a boycott of Magnum brands could force a sale

Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream in the tub is still great, but the brand’s newest chocolate-covered ice-cream bar on a stick?

“It ain’t the same,” Ben Cohen, the company co-founder, told the Guardian. Sure, the chocolate coating is still thick enough, but the ice cream itself is “kinda fluffy”, Cohen said – an insult in the ice-cream world that suggests extra air was added to cut costs.

The criticism is surprising coming from Cohen, who opened his eponymous ice-cream shop in Burlington, Vermont, with childhood friend, Jerry Greenfield, in 1978. But it’s perhaps an apt metaphor of how he feels amid a simmering fight to take back Ben & Jerry’s from a parent company he says has silenced the brand’s trademark activism.

For Cohen, 75, the battle is legal and existential. Ben & Jerry’s social and economic value was protected for decades, he says, by an independent board with final say on the brand’s voice, values and ice-cream quality.

But that independence has all but disappeared, Cohen said. In November 2024, Ben & Jerry’s board sued parent company Unilever, claiming it was blocked from voicing support for Gaza, and accusing Unilever of breaching their agreement. The lawsuit is still making its way through federal court.

In September 2025, after Unilever said it would spin off its ice-cream brands into the Magnum Ice Cream Company, Cohen started his campaign to “Free Ben & Jerry’s” – asking Magnum to sell the brand so it can be independently owned and operated.

Social activism is a core part of why people buy Ben & Jerry’s, Cohen says. “What consumers want above all is authenticity and attitude,” he said.

Ben & Jerry’s could be valued at $1bn or more, Cohen estimates, but says Magnum won’t give him or potential investors numbers that could help value it more accurately.

Magnum has insisted Ben & Jerry’s is not up for sale, so Cohen is amping up his campaign. In recent weeks, Cohen has started calling for a boycott of Magnum’s other brands, including Yasso, Breyers, Talenti and Klondike, with the idea that tanking the company’s overall sales will pressure it to sell back the company.

“We didn’t want it to have to come to this,” he said of the boycott, but Magnum is “destroying a brand” that stands for values its customers believe in.

What Cohen is trying to do – force an $11bn conglomerate into divesting a star brand – is highly unusual, and unlikely to succeed, some industry and management experts predict.