Ben & Jerry’s co-founder says Unilever blocked Palestine-themed ice cream

The co-founder of ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s says that its father or mother firm Unilever blocked it from launching an ice cream flavour that expressed “solidarity with Palestine”.

Ben Cohen introduced that he’ll independently create the brand new flavour as a part of a private sequence highlighting causes the corporate has been barred from addressing publicly.

Ben & Jerry’s is understood for its activism on social points and has constantly spoken out on political, environmental and humanitarian issues – together with the Israel-Gaza battle.

The BBC has contacted Unilever for remark.

Mr Cohen’s assertion deepens the long-drawn dispute between the world-famous ice cream maker and Unilever, the British packaged items large which has owned Ben & Jerry’s since 2000.

The co-founders stated Unilever and its ice cream arm Magnum, which is being spun off from its father or mother firm, had unlawfully blocked their firm from “honouring its social mission”.

Mr Cohen stated in an Instagram video on Tuesday that he’s creating a brand new watermelon-flavoured sorbet, calling for concepts for the product’s identify and what elements needs to be added.

The watermelon has turn out to be an emblem for solidarity with Palestinians resulting from its colors, that are just like these of the Palestinian flag – crimson, inexperienced, black and white.

The American entrepreneur stated Ben & Jerry’s had been prevented by Unilever from creating the dessert.

“I am doing what they could not,” Mr Cohen says from his set in a kitchen. “I am making a watermelon-flavoured ice cream that requires everlasting peace in Palestine and requires repairing the injury that was carried out there.”

In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s refused to promote its merchandise in areas occupied by Israel. Its Israeli operation was bought by Unilever to a neighborhood licensee, permitting its ice cream to proceed being bought within the occupied West Financial institution.

The dessert sequence shall be developed beneath Ben’s Greatest, Mr Cohen’s activist ice cream model, he stated in an announcement to the press. The flavour is being produced independently of Ben & Jerry’s, the assertion stated.

Ben’s Greatest was first setup in 2016 to help former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, with the flavour “Bernie’s Again”.

Mr Cohen stated he’ll develop different ice cream flavours that talk to the problems Ben & Jerry’s was silenced from addressing publicly by Unilever.

In September, co-founder Jerry Greenfield stepped down from Ben & Jerry’s after a long time on the firm, citing considerations that its independence had been compromised following Unilever’s resolution to curb its social activism.

On the time, Ben Cohen stated that “Jerry has a very massive coronary heart and this battle with Unilever was breaking it.”

“My coronary heart leads me to proceed to work inside the corporate to advocate for its independence in order that it might probably actualise the social mission, the values that it was based on and has maintained for over 40 years,” he informed the BBC’s PM programme.