The Netherlands Brigade
You know Ben & Jerry’s. You probably have a favorite flavor — Cherry Garcia, Half Baked, Phish Food. But behind all those colorful tubs sits something you rarely find in an ice cream brand: a genuine soul.
We’ve come to know Ben & Jerry’s as part of the socially responsible B Corp network in the Netherlands.
Ben & Jerry’s was one of the first businesses in the world to place a social mission at the heart of everything it does — not as a marketing gimmick, but as a fundamental part of how it operates. Fair wages, sustainable sourcing, support for movements fighting for climate justice, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrants, and voting rights. While other companies focus only on profit, Ben & Jerry’s proved you could make great ice cream, run a healthy business, and work toward a better world all at the same time.
In 2000, when the company was sold to Unilever for $326 million. Ben and Jerry fought it. They were afraid that a multi-national corporation would rip the heart out of the company and destroy everything that made Ben & Jerry’s Ben & Jerry’s.
They lost that fight, but in the process they secured an independent board of directors, with legally defined authority to safeguard the brand’s social mission — no matter who owned the company. It was a governance structure unlike anything else in the corporate world. And for more than two decades, it worked. Until it stopped.
When Unilever spun off its entire ice cream division — including Ben & Jerry’s — The Magnum Ice Cream Company started to suppress the social mission. First, they fired the CEO for respecting the independent board, then they removed all the independent directors except for one Unilever-appointed representative. The independent board filed suit, and the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation subsequently joined that lawsuit after Magnum stopped providing the approved funding that had been guaranteed under the original acquisition agreement.
In September 2025, Jerry Greenfield did something nobody wanted to see. After 47 years, he resigned from the company he had built from scratch. His letter was honest and painful:
“Standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important, and yet Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power.”
Now Ben has launched the Free Ben and Jerry’s campaign to pressure Magnum to sell the company to a group of socially aligned investors and save the social mission.
That’s where we come in.
Ben Needs Our Help!
More than 130,000 people have already signed a petition asking Magnum to sell Ben & Jerry’s to values-aligned investors. But it’s not enough yet. Magnum is listed on Euronext Amsterdam. Their leadership is within reach. And that gives all of us — especially those of us here in the Netherlands — a particular responsibility to make our voices heard.
If people take action, it will be saved. Otherwise, it turns into another frozen piece of mush clogging up your freezer.
Here's How You Can Save Ben & Jerry’s Social Mission
Your signature matters.
Add it to the hundreds of thousands around the world saying: sell Ben & Jerry’s to owners who actually get it.
Flood Magnum's Social Media
Go to every @MagnumGlobal and @MagnumIceCream account and write:
#FreeBenAndJerrys. Every comment is a signal.
Every hashtag turns up the pressure. They listen when it costs them not to.
Be a walking billboard
Wear your Ben & Jerry’s shirt, carry the tote, pull on the cap.
Let people ask questions. Tell them the story.
Grab a Sticker
On your laptop, your bike, your front door — anywhere people pass by and think: wait, what’s that?
Take one. Use it.
Post Flyers
In your neighborhood, at school, in the supermarket, at the café.
Print them out. Leave them behind. Let people know what’s happening.
