#BYMEspresso☕: Ben and Jerry's Social Mission
The company now offers its lowest-paid workers more than twice the national minimum wage. According to its website, it uses only cage-free eggs.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield founded their gourmet ice creamery in 1978 and were pushing the boundaries of conventional business from the beginning.
After a national stock offering in 1985, the company set up a foundation and committed to funding it with 7.5 percent of its annual pretax profits.
Mr Cohen and Mr Greenfield then came up with a three-part mission statement:
To build a successful, world-class ice cream company; to make the world's best ice cream; and to help make the world a better place.
When Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods conglomerate, offered to buy the company in 2000 for a rich 25 per cent premium, neither Cohen nor Greenfield wanted to sell. They worried that Unilever would abandon the progressive aspects of the business. After much hand-wringing, it agreed to a deal with Unilever for US$326 million (RM1.4 billion).
But today, 15 years after the deal, Michalak said Ben & Jerry’s remained as mission-driven as ever and had a bigger impact than before because of its increased size.
Unilever established an “external board” overseeing Ben & Jerry’s culture and social mission. That board, initially comprising five longtime Ben & Jerry’s supporters, including Cohen and Greenfield, has the authority to set aggressive new social impact targets and to push back against Unilever.
When Michalak took over the social mission in 2006, he worked with the external board to redouble commitments to local farmers and set even more ambitious goals for reducing energy consumption and waste.
The company now offers its lowest-paid workers more than twice the national minimum wage. According to its website, it uses only cage-free eggs. And recently, Ben & Jerry’s became a B Corporation, a voluntary certification by a non-profit group called B Lab designating companies that uphold high social and environmental standards.