Ben & Jerry’s 1978-2026 RIP

Caemin (0:06)

Good morning, folks, and welcome to today's episode. It's called Ben and Jerry's 1978 to 2026 RIP.

And the RIP part, well, you'll see what I'm getting at by the end of the episode. I wanted to dig into this story for a while now, because like most of you, I knew the outline. You know, two hippie type guys who do things a bit differently, who were never really interested in money or success, and yet somehow they built one of the biggest and best known ice cream brands in the world. But the details of how they did this, through just being totally authentic, following their sense of fun, getting a lucky break, and then when they become successful, they do everything they can to spread the wealth, to develop a different type of business. But eventually, big business catches up with them. And while the ending is sad for Ben and Jerry, I just love this story for so many different reasons. Enjoy.

So Ben Cohn and Jerry Greenfield, they were born just four days apart in March 1951, and they grew up in Merrick, Long Island. And they first met in junior high school in gym class because, according to Ben, they were the two slowest and fastest kids. And Jerry also noticed Ben because Ben starts arguing with the coach in the gym, being a bit of a smartass. And Jerry loved this because he was the complete opposite. As he later said, I always followed the rules. And that was their partnership for life. That was the balance between them. Ben, the outgoing risk taker, Jerry, the quieter, the more reserved one. After school, they go their different ways. Jerry studies pre-med because he wants to come a doctor, but after graduating, he gets rejected from various medical schools, and he ends up working as a lab technician. Ben, meanwhile, dropped out of college, moves around, drives taxis, works as a janitor, gets big into pottery. But by 1977, the two of them, they were living together in New York. They're now in their mid-twenties. Their friends are getting proper jobs, starting careers, while Ben and Jerry are, in the words of Ben, two near-do-wells. So they decide to do something together. They both like food, and so they send away for a correspondence course for just $5 on how to make ice cream. And then in 1978, with $12,000 in savings and a small loan, they opened Ben and Jerry's in an abandoned petrol station in Burlington, Vermont, close to the University of Vermont.

And they start making this very rich ice cream by hand, and sold it alongside soup and crepes, with a hand-painted sign outside the front door in big block letters with Ben and Jerry's, homemade. The hot food, it doesn't sell too well, but the ice cream is bringing people back because it's a bit different. Not only is it richer and creamier than the supermarket stuff, but it also has big chunks of chocolate and nuts and other stuff.

And the reason for this is because Ben has a very poor sense of smell, which means his sense of taste isn't great either. So they make the flavors a little bit stronger and they put in these big chunks so that Ben can actually taste and feel the difference.

And the timing is pretty good as well because America is just discovering premium ice cream. So for a bit of context about this business, up until the 1950s, the big manufacturers were going the other way. Cheaper ingredients with more air whipped into the product, and more air means more ice cream from the same amount of ingredients, so it's cheaper to make. But then you have this Polish immigrant in the Bronx called Ruben Masys. Now his whole family had been involved in the ice cream business, he understands it well, and with the ever-increasing amounts of cheap ice cream taken over the market, Masys decides to do the exact opposite. Better ingredients, more butterfat, much less air, so the ice cream is thick, dense, creamier. And then he gives it this completely made up name, Hag and Daz. It means nothing. He just wanted something that sounded Danish, sophisticated, expensive. He even puts a map of Denmark on the carton, and he charges a premium price for it, and it works. By 1978, Masys was franchising it, expanding it to dozens of scoop shops across major cities nationwide, and so other premium ice creams started to emerge around this time. But it's worth pausing here, and contrasting the different styles between Hagendaz and Ben and Jerry's, because they're so different in every single way. Hagendaz, smooth and creamy, Ben and Jerry's was full of chunks. But then there's the marketing. Again, Hagendaz made up to create this illusion that it's some sort of exotic foreign ice cream. As I said, they even have a map of Denmark on the carton, when in fact, the ice cream is made in the Bronx.