Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield, whose name helped shape the popular ice cream brand, has resigned from the company due to growing disagreements with its parent company, Unilever, regarding its stance on the conflict in Gaza.
Greenfield said that the Vermont-based company has lost its independence since Unilever curtailed its social activism, according to an open letter addressing the Ben & Jerry's community that was shared by his partner Ben Cohen on the social media platform X on Wednesday.
Unilever and Ben & Jerry's have clashed since 2021, when the Chubby Hubby maker said it would stop sales in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The brand has since sued its parent over alleged efforts to silence it and described the Gaza conflict as genocide, a rare stance for a major U.S. company.
Greenfield said he could no longer, "in good conscience, and after 47 years," continue working for a company that had been "silenced" by Unilever, despite a merger agreement meant to safeguard the brand's social mission.
"That independence existed in no small part because of the unique merger agreement Ben and I negotiated with Unilever," he wrote in the letter.
"It's profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone," he added.
In May, the 74-year-old Cohen was removed from a U.S. Senate hearing after shouting "Congress pays for bombs to kill children in Gaza," and startling Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
A longtime critic of Israeli policy, Cohen last year joined prominent Jewish figures in an open letter opposing the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
A spokesperson for Magnum Ice Cream Company, Unilever's ice cream unit, said that it "disagrees with Greenfield's perspective and has sought to engage both co-founders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerry's powerful values-based position in the world."
Magnum said Greenfield stepped down as a brand ambassador and that he is not a party to the lawsuit.
Greenfield's departure comes as Ben & Jerry's has been calling for its own spin-off ahead of a planned listing of Magnum Ice Cream in November after years of clashing over the U.S. brand's vocal position on Gaza.
Last week, Cohen demanded to "free Ben & Jerry's" to protect its social values, which was rebuffed by new Magnum CEO Peter ter Kulve.
Cohen said the brand had attempted to engineer a sale to investors at a fair market value between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, but the proposal was rejected.
Ben & Jerry's was founded by Cohen and Greenfield in a renovated gas station in 1978, and kept its socially conscious mission after Unilever bought it in 2000.
