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The co-founder of ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s says his parent company Unilever has blocked him from launching an ice cream flavor that expresses “solidarity with Palestine.”
Ben Cohen announced he will create the new flavor on his own as part of a personal series highlighting the reasons the company has forbidden him from speaking publicly.
Ben & Jerry’s is known for its activism on social issues and has consistently spoken out on political, environmental and humanitarian issues – including the Israel-Gaza conflict.
The BBC has contacted Unilever for comment.
Mr. Cohen’s statement deepens a long-running dispute between the world-famous ice cream maker and Unilever, the British packaged goods giant that has owned Ben & Jerry’s since 2000.
The co-founders said Unilever and its Magnum ice cream arm, which is being spun off from its parent company, had unlawfully blocked their company from “honouring its social mission”.
Mr. Cohen said in an Instagram video on Tuesday that it is creating a new watermelon-flavored sorbet, calling for ideas for the product’s name and what ingredients should be added.
The watermelon has become a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinians because of its colors, which are similar to those of the Palestinian flag – red, green, black and white.
The American entrepreneur said that Ben & Jerry’s was prevented by Unilever from creating the dessert.
“I’m doing what they couldn’t,” says Mr. Cohen from his kitchen decor. “I’m making watermelon-flavored ice cream that calls for permanent peace in Palestine and for the restoration of the damage done there.”
In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s refused to sell its products in areas occupied by Israel. Its Israeli operation was sold by Unilever to a local licensee, allowing its ice cream to continue to be sold in the occupied West Bank.
The dessert line will be developed under Ben’s Best, Mr. Cohen’s active ice cream brand, he said in a press statement. The flavor is produced independently of Ben & Jerry’s, the statement said.
Ben’s Best was first created in 2016 to support former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, with the fragrance ‘Bernie’s Back’.
Mr. Cohen said he would develop other ice cream flavors that spoke to the issues that Ben & Jerry’s had been silenced from speaking publicly by Unilever.
In September, he co-founded Jerry Greenfield has retired from Ben & Jerry’s after decades at the company, citing concerns that her independence had been compromised following Unilever’s decision to curtail her social activism.
At the time, Ben Cohen said that “Jerry has a really big heart and this conflict with Unilever was breaking him.”
“My heart tells me to continue working for the company to protect its independence so that it can update the social mission, the values on which it was founded and which it has supported for more than 40 years,” he said on the BBC’s PM programme.
