Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream

On 5 May 1978, two young men named Ben Cohen (b. 1951) and Jerry Greenfield (b. 1951), originally from Merrick, New York, started an ice cream business called Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc., in Burlington, Vermont. Beginning with only $12,000 and a great liking for food, they have since become internationally famous business leaders, best known perhaps for their philanthropic style of business. They are also among the chief early contributors to a growing business movement that promotes “socially responsible business.” For this achievement Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were named the U.S. Small Business Persons of the Year in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan.

The business, Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. (hereafter Ben & Jerry's), is considered a good example of the classic entrepreneurial success—with a twist. What makes Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield stand out from the entrepreneurial crowd is that they[Page 92] advocate a business philosophy called “caring capitalism.” Indeed, this philosophy is thought by many to be the most significant factor in their successful climb to the top of the ice cream business world.

Ben & Jerry's is perhaps the best-known corporate representative today of a movement in business that adopts a “new corporate concept of linked prosperity” (Ben & Jerry's 1993 Annual Report). This “new concept” places an equal emphasis upon both the repercussions a business has on its surrounding society as well as on the conventional economic priorities of a business (survival in a competitive market). Ben Cohen has from the beginning maintained that business has a responsibility to give back to the community. This ideal, established during the early days of Ben & Jerry's, embodies the idea that a business can prosper as the community around it prospers.