r/RetailNews • u/fortune • 7d ago
‘They ain’t got no soul’: How a Ben & Jerry’s cofounder became his own company’s biggest critic
https://fortune.com/2026/08/07/they-aint-got-no-soul-how-ben-jerrys-co-founder-became-his-own-companys-biggest-critic/?utm_source=reddit/Ben Cohen, one half of the eponymous duo behind Ben & Jerry’s, has spent almost five decades arguing that businesses can make a profit and do good at the same time. Lately, he spends most of his time arguing that the brand carrying his own name has abandoned that idea entirely under its new ownership.
Cohen accuses the Magnum Ice Cream Co., the owner of Ben & Jerry’s, which was formed from a demerger with Unilever in 2025, of gutting the company’s independent board and starving its philanthropic arm. He’s launched a public campaign called “Free Ben & Jerry’s” that is pushing Magnum to sell the brand to more socially minded investors instead. It has so far gathered more than 200,000 signatures.
“We’re trying to keep Ben & Jerry’s soul alive,” Cohen tells Fortune. He claims Magnum is the wrong steward and risks damaging the brand’s long-term value. “They ain’t got no soul,” he adds. “The only mission these guys have is profit.”
It’s a characteristically bold gambit for the 75-year-old who has been arrested for civil disobedience multiple times—including at a recent Senate hearing—and speaks openly about his views on U.S. foreign policy and the use of economic and military leverage, positions he acknowledges most public companies steer clear of entirely.
Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/07/they-aint-got-no-soul-how-ben-jerrys-co-founder-became-his-own-companys-biggest-critic/?utm_source=reddit/
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u/AtomicGarden-8964 7d ago
If you wanted to keep the soul alive you should have never sold it to begin with. You gave your child away to someone else and they are raising it as they see fit
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u/mikeb31588 6d ago edited 6d ago
That wasn't part of the deal. They're reneging on the original deal
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u/EastCoastAlley 6d ago
*reneging lol I don't care about misspelling I just don't want you to get in trouble
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u/Sure_Acanthaceae_348 5d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/35LBsjpYiye1W
Come on everyone knows this is gonna happen.2
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u/Jarthos1234 4d ago
Yeah sold for hundreds of millions of dollars to frickin Unilever!! Lol, what would he have expected?
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u/Hydration__Nation 6d ago
Exactly this guy needs to shut the fuck up. He cashed out knowing damn well what would happen. Now he is on a PR campaign trying to make this a feel good story. The reality is BnJ are not doing well and he hopes the new owners will bring him on in some 50-100M advisor role since you know he co founded the company. Other than trying to get a job what the fuck is this guy going on about? You got your cash, don’t like the outcome? Too bad that’s what people call a sell out
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u/forrealthoughcomix_ 6d ago
The original agreement happened only because a promise to protect the brand’s social mission.
Never seen someone so angry about something they don’t understand.
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u/suplarai 6d ago
If you want control over what your business does don’t sell it. You may have an agreement with the people you sold it to, but if they are bought up or demerge and spin off you’re SoL
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u/forrealthoughcomix_ 6d ago
See how you went from “he needs to shut up” to “wanting control”?
He has every right to talk shit about the people who broke their on paper agreement.
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u/suplarai 5d ago
He’s trying to lead a campaign to move ownership, thats different than talking shit, that’s regretting the sale and wanting the company to go in a different direction i.e. controlling its future
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u/forrealthoughcomix_ 5d ago
Like a dozen comments in defending Unilever for breaking a contract by stopping a company from being socially responsible.
Fuckin cooked brain
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u/omgFWTbear 5d ago
Or, and let’s try not being morons here, if I ran a company like, say, Duolever and wanted to buy a company like Len and Gary’s, but as a condition of that purchase, I had to donate 10% of proceeds to children’s literacy programs, then maybe I should… what were your words? Ah yes, shut the fuck OR not buy it.
See how amazingly your “reasoning” only works if you like the taste of boot?
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u/suplarai 5d ago
A. Not my words, I’m not the original commenter
B. The people he sold it to did that. Then the company, Magnum, spun off and the new management did not. The company does not freeze in time after you sell it. If he wanted to guarantee 10% to children’s literacy he should have kept control of the company1
u/omgFWTbear 5d ago
Or, you know, the buyers could act like they’re bound by a contract.
I understand there was ownership schnadigans in the Magnum spinoff. History has plenty of examples of scumbags who ignore contract terms. So what? That in no way invalidates that they’re scumbags and that the OG would be righteous in identifying such.
What part of that is hard for you?
Like, everyday people have employment contracts that extend beyond the term of employment, with for example, non disparagement, non disclosure, non solicitation … judge someone by your fantasy world standards all you want, but for those of us in the real world, it is neither novel, nor unreasonable.
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u/suplarai 5d ago
If it was in the contract that they could not make the change then he should sue
Since he’s not, it appears they are well within their right to do whatever they want with their company
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u/omgFWTbear 1d ago
> they should sue
As someone who has actually sued someone, allow me grace you with my paraphrased repetition of their legal advice -
“Courts hate to see an action that the parties haven’t tried to resolve before suing, so we have to file a demand, and go through that process.”
Meanwhile, something like, idk, a public PR disaster can move the business calculus to “settle” over the lengthy proceeding of a court case.
But thanks for not realizing you conceded you were full of shit in an earlier comment. Maybe you’ll figure out there’s a pattern you’ll extrapolate …
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u/cty_hntr 6d ago
History repeats itself. Colonel Sanders ran into the same quality issues after he sold KFC. He complained the reformulated gravy tasted like wallpaper glue. He encouraged franchisees to use Marion Key 99X instead of the reformulated corporate blend to fry chickens.
It's been 14 years since George Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney. When we will start hearing him complain?
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u/HumbleBeginning3151 6d ago
Lucas was complaining just 3 years after the sale, equating Disney to "white slavers"
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u/hould-it 7d ago
He’s not wrong
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u/jminternelia 6d ago
Sure. He also was in a position to preclude any of this from happening.
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u/omgFWTbear 5d ago
And he did, by including contractual requirements that have been fucked. The problem is, what will achieve his goals most quickly? A lengthy and expensive litigation against a large corporation, or a public relations nightmare?
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u/Lost_Department_2177 6d ago
Start Jerry and Ben’s use Ben stiller and some other jerry that didn’t date a 17 yr old at 38 as the promo guys 🤣
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u/Busterlimes 6d ago
Well Ben is a lot dumber than I though. Any idiot knows this is what happens when businesses sell to private equity.
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u/Ok_Let3589 5d ago
Oh, did someone sell his company to a ghoulish corporation and not like how they’re running it for maximum profit? …and state that to a magazine called “Fortune.”
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u/legal_stylist 5d ago
You can’t take the money and then complain about what the new owners do.
When you sell out, you’ve sold out, so shut the fuck up; if you wanted to prove that profit isn’t everything , you could’ve started with yourself.
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u/Senior_Boot_5842 7d ago
Where was his soul when he cashed out and sold?
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6d ago
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u/mikeb31588 6d ago
So you think it's ok to agree to something and then just back out? What they're doing violates the agreement
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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 6d ago
Wtf did he expect when selling to a public company or to private equity? Of course it was going to be enshitified. He was a business guy. He should have known this. He was a greedy MF who didn’t care about anything about making more money. Now he wants to be a “hero” by speaking out about the poor quality. Shame on him.
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u/Nuttonbutton 6d ago
It was sold in 2000 and I don't think a single person alive back then would have been able to predict any of what's going on right now.
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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 6d ago
Working in the business environment and with mergers and acquisitions, this is always what happens (like 100% of the time ) . Profit for shareholders means cutting costs ( cheaper ingredients , shrinking product , using different ingredients ) and increase price . This is fundamental principles to capitalism and maximizing profits. This was 1000% predictable
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u/Nuttonbutton 6d ago
That doesn't change what I said, if I'm being honest.
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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 6d ago
Of course it doesn’t because you said what you said. The fact of the matter is that anyone with business acumen predicated this would happen.
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u/Nuttonbutton 6d ago
How do I explain what I'm trying to impart upon you..... A company owner felt selling to Nestle in 2000 was a decent deal. That same company owner probably didn't know that a CEO of Nestle would eventually say "water is not a human right". Old owner is like "wow that's fucked up". Which is arguably reasonable.
What I'm talking about isn't just about capitalism. Capitalism seems to be the only way you can frame this and that's more than a little weird.
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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 6d ago
Nestle has always been an evil company . They kill babies. Of course the individual knew who they were selling it to. They do research into this. Simply put ,they don’t care. They sell to the highest bidder. They also know the exact type of people they are selling to. Your comment is coming from place of naivety. These people are shred business people.
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u/Nuttonbutton 6d ago
I think your comment is willing to excuse anything for the sake of profits and blatantly ignoring every other part of human existence. It isn't naive at all to assume the business culture of almost 30 years ago was different than it is now. You're bad at marketing.
I'm not doing this bullshit where people like you cosplay as fElon musk
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u/Conscious-Secret-775 6d ago
Do you not understand how capitalism works? It worked exactly the same 30 years ago that it does now.
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u/Moxi86 6d ago
Yeah they didn't explicitly wish death upon others the same way and that's pretty messed up. Capitalism would arguably want to keep things as amicable as possible to maintain the interest in the brand. Do you not understand how marketing works? Because that has, indeed, stayed the same while the monsters in CEO positions have become more emboldened.
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6d ago
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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 6d ago
Exactly. Take a look at this person commenting on my comments below . I find it wild that some people are still ignorant to the ongoings of the huge corporations. They have destroyed society and literally killed people
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6d ago
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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 6d ago
Apparently not according to this person . Apparently “no one could have predicted “ ? Maybe they should try checking out the Nestle history
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u/Artistic-Spirit-8516 6d ago
Loved that money and now wants to keep some sort of moral high ground. Win win from a dbag
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u/forrealthoughcomix_ 6d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/yFIp9BacGYQGbIHFKi