Though the founders of Ben & Jerry’s made an in-person appearance at Northwestern on Wednesday night, the duo joked that NU students only came to their speech for the free ice cream.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s, spoke to a crowd of about 350 people in Ryan Family Auditorium. The pair visited NU as the College Democrats’ fall speaker event.
Their speech was a mix of the story of Ben & Jerry’s and the reasoning behind their decision to promote social causes through their company – along with a few antics. Greenfield and Cohen met in seventh grade gym and were the two slowest kids in the class, Greenfield said. After a few false starts in their college years, Greenfield said they decided to start an ice cream business and took a $5 correspondence course on ice cream making from Penn State University.
“We finally found the type of education that was suited to our unique learning styles,” Greenfield said jokingly.
Cohen and Greenfield opened their first ice cream shop in an old gas station in Burlington, Vt., in May 1978. Soon their ice cream was distributed throughout the region. Greenfield said they were “not ice cream guys anymore,” but were becoming businessmen.
Though they were reluctant at first to stay in the business world, Greenfield said he and Cohen wanted to make their company more supportive of the community.
“We decided to redefine the bottom line…to not just how much money we made,” Greenfield said.
For example, Greenfield said the brownies the company uses in ice cream flavors such as Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Half Baked are from Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, N.Y., which uses all profits to support the underprivileged.
Weinberg sophomore Andrew Hobaugh attended the speech and said he liked Cohen and Greenfield’s policy of giving back to the community.
“There are a lot of different ways for businesses to help,” Hobaugh said.
Cohen and Greenfield no longer own the publicly-held company, which was sold to Unilever in 2000, but both still work with Ben & Jerry’s in an advisory role. Greenfield said they didn’t want the company to get bought out. When asked by an audience member if he thought the company is still going in the same direction as under its founders’ policies, Greenfield only said “sometimes.”
“(Ben & Jerry’s) is owned by a company that’s not really motivated by values,” Cohen said after the event.
Cohen said a business should use its voice in the interest of society as a whole, not just in its own self-interest. He said many companies are concerned with lowering their environmental impact, and in the future many will follow suit with concern for social impact.
Before the event, Jordan Fein, president of College Democrats, said Cohen and Greenfield were a little different than past speakers because they are not directly involved in politics.
Last year, the group’s fall speaker was retired Gen. Wesley Clark.
“It’s an attempt to reach out to a wider constituency of students that might not come see a political speaker,” said Fein, a Weinberg junior. [email protected]
