Freezing out Ben & Jerry: Corporate Law and the Sale of a Social Enterprise Icon
![handle is hein.journals/vlr35 and id is 213 raw text is: FREEZING OUT BEN & JERRY: CORPORATE LAW AND
THE SALE OF A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE ICON
Antony Page* & Robert A. Katz**
INTRODUCTION
The perfect duo. Ice cream and chunks. Business and social change. Ben
and Jerry.'
Nobody wants to end up like Ben and Jerry's, where soon after a
multinational acquired it, key facets of its social mission were cut from the
company.2
Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. was once the darling of proponents of
social enterprise and social entrepreneurship.3 It was a for-profit corporation
that seemingly did not put profits first. Rather, it pursued, in the parlance, a
double bottom line, seeking to advance progressive social goals, while
still yielding an acceptable financial return for investors. It advanced its
social mission in many ways, such as by committing 7.5% of its profits to a
charitable foundation; conducting in-store voter registration; and buying
ingredients from suppliers who employed disadvantaged populations.4 Ben
& Jerry's founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, held out their double
bottom line approach (they called it the double-dip) as a model for others
who wished to Lead With [their] Values and Make Money, Too.
The adulation dropped off significantly in 2000, when Ben & Jerry's
* Professor of Law at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis.
** Professor of Law at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis and Professor of
Philanthropic Studies at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy.
t Thanks to the organizers of the symposium Corporate Creativity: The Vermont L3C & Other
Developments in Social Entrepreneurship, and the editors of this Article: Merrill Bent, Emily Montgomery
and Sofia Yazykova at the Vermont Law Review. Thanks also to research assistants Jonathan Lund and
Phillip Triplett.
1. BEN COHEN & JERRY GREENFIELD, BEN & JERRY'S DOUBLE DIP: LEAD WITH YOUR
VALUES AND MAKE MONEY, Too 13 (1997).
2. Kevin Jones, Selling vs. Selling Out, STAN. Soc. INNOVATION REV. OP. BLOG (Feb 27, 2009,
11:00 AM), http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/entry/sellingvssellingtout/.
3. See April Dembosky, Protecting Companies that Mix Profitability, Values, NPR MORNING
EDITION (Mar. 9, 2010), available at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyld=124468487
(stating that the sale of Ben & Jerry's helped set the stage for today's young, idealistic companies).
4. Id. at 60-63, 101, 110.
5. COHEN & GREENFIELD, supra note 1.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/vlr35&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Freezing out Ben & Jerry: Corporate Law and the Sale of a Social Enterprise Icon
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