Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Holdings Inc., trading and commonly known as Ben & Jerry’s, is a Vermont-based company that manufactures ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sorbet. Founded in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, it sold in 2000 to British conglomerate Unilever. Today it operates globally as a fully owned subsidiary of Unilever. Its present-day headquarters is in South Burlington, Vermont, with its main factory in Waterbury, Vermont.
There was an official survey taken among the general public to find out the best Ben and Jerrys flavour. Cookie dough was the winner with 60% and in last place was chocolate chip brownie with 8.5%. The “Vermonster” is a large ice cream sundae served in a “Vermonster Bucket” in Ben & Jerry’s “scoop shops.” Its ingredients are 20 scoops of ice cream, 4 bananas, 4 ladles of hot fudge, 3 chocolate chip cookies, 1 chocolate fudge brownie, 10 scoops of walnuts, 2 scoops each of any 4 toppings, and whipped cream. It contains 14,000 calories (59,000 kJ), and 500 grams (18 oz) of fat. Since 2009, the Vermonster Challenge is an annual charity event held by Ben & Jerry’s in which teams of four compete to finish a Vermonster and win free ice cream for a year.
“Chubby Hubby” consists of vanilla malt ice cream swirled with fudge and peanut butter, and containing pretzel nuggets covered in fudge and filled with peanut butter. During the month of September 2009, Ben and Jerry’s, in partnership with Freedom to Marry, renamed “Chubby Hubby” to “Hubby Hubby,” in celebration of the legalization of same-sex marriage in the company’s home state of Vermont. The carton featured the image of two men in tuxedos getting married beneath a rainbow.
On March 13, 2012, Ben & Jerry’s announced it would be changing the name of one of its ice cream flavors in the UK in support of equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. “Oh! My! Apple Pie!” would become “Apple-y Ever After” and tubs would feature a gay couple atop a wedding cake decorated with rainbows.
“Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough” was temporarily renamed “I Dough, I Dough” in the United States during the summer of 2015. This was in celebration of United States Supreme Court’s ruling in support of same-sex marriage. The proceeds from sales were to go to the Human Rights Campaign (a nonprofit advocacy group for LGBT rights).
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield appeared on The Colbert Report on March 5, 2007, to promote their new ice cream flavor, “Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream”, and Cohen’s progressive advocacy group TrueMajority.
The company renamed a flavor, “Yes Pecan!”, in reference to Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. They decided in January 2009 to donate all proceeds made on the sale of that flavor to the Common Cause Education Fund.
On March 2, 2011, Cohen and Greenfield appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and unveiled their new flavor of ice cream, “Late Night Snack”, whose carton features a picture of Jimmy Fallon on it.
On February 24, 2012, Ben & Jerry’s released a new Greek Frozen Yogurt line, which came in several flavors: “Strawberry Shortcake”, “Blueberry Vanilla Graham”, “Raspberry Fudge Chunk”, “Banana Peanut Butter”, and “Vanilla” (scoop shop exclusive): On April 12, 2013, “Pineapple Passionfruit”, “Vanilla Honey Caramel”, and “Liz Lemon” were added to the Greek Yogurt line. The Liz Lemon flavor was inspired by a character of the same name created by actress Tina Fey as the main character on the NBC television sitcom 30 Rock.
On February 17, 2015, Cohen and Greenfield appeared on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon and unveiled their new flavor of ice cream, “The Tonight Dough”, with all of its proceeds going to the SeriousFun Children’s Network that supports camps for children with major illnesses.
