Ben & Jerry's

We believe that using business as a tool for social and environmental change is just as important as sourcing the finest ingredients to make our ice cream.

Best possible ice cream, in the nicest possible way

Our aim is to make the best possible ice cream, in the nicest possible way. It's not only mixing in the best ingredients that's important to us, our suppliers are too. We believe that using business as a tool for social and environmental change is just as important as sourcing the finest ingredients to make our ice cream. So, when we can, we source ingredients from producers and suppliers who share our values.

History

Back in '66, in a school gym class, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield found they hated running but loved food. Years later in '78, Ben had been fired from a series of jobs while Jerry had failed for the second time to get into medical school. So, since eating was their great passion, armed with a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making, they opened their first scoop shop in a dilapidated gas station in Burlington, Vermont.

They soon became popular in the local community for the finest all natural ice cream made from fresh Vermont milk and cream. Ben didn't have the best sense of taste so he relied on what he called 'mouth feel', so big chunks of chocolate, fruit and nut became their signature. While they disagreed at times over the chunk size, they did agree that they wanted to enjoy themselves - as Jerry put it 'if it's not fun, why do it?'.

In the early days the boys were pretty bad at book-keeping. After two months they closed the store and hung a sign that said 'we're closed to figure out whether we're making any money'. And they weren't. But they learned a lot and by 1979, began wholesaling pints of ice cream out of Ben's VW campervan. The rest, as they say, is history.