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A Man of Principle
Jerry Greenfield is a model for all of us
Jerry Greenfield just couldn’t take it anymore.
On September 17, 2025, Greenfield, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, the uniquely quirky ice cream company, resigned after 47 years.
According to The New York Times:
In his statement, Mr. Greenfield said he could no longer “in good conscience” remain at the company he started with Mr. Cohen in 1978.
Mr. Greenfield, 74, said that the “independence to pursue our values” that had been guaranteed for Ben & Jerry’s when it merged with Unilever in 2000 had been lost.
“Standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important,” Mr. Greenfield wrote. But, he added, “Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power.” …
“From the very beginning, Ben and I believed that our values and the pursuit of justice were more important than the company itself,” Mr. Greenfield wrote on Wednesday. “If the company couldn’t stand up for the things we believed, then it wasn’t worth being a company at all.”
Cohen and Greenfield co-founded Ben & Jerry’s in Burlington, Vermont, in 1978. What started as a single ice cream parlor turned into a multinational…
