Could Ben & Jerry's Be Created Today? (Your Radical Questions with Ben Cohen)

**Amol Rajan** (0:08)
Hello, and welcome to Your Radical Questions. This is where I put your questions to some of our magnificent, and if I may say inspirational, radical guests, it's your chance to engage very directly with them. They are always super smart, interesting, influential, and they've thought very hard about how to make the world a better place. And that is definitely true of our very distinguished guests this week, and indeed on last Thursday's episode. I hope you heard it. If you haven't, go back and listen to it. It is with one of the co-founders of Ben & Jerry's, Ben Cohen, who until he came into the studio, I hadn't thought, Cohen, you make ice cream cones.
Nominative determinism.

**Ben Cohen** (0:45)
Go figure.

**Amol Rajan** (0:46)
Of course. It's wonderful to have you with us. Thank you so much. We've had a load of questions from our listeners, people who not only eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream, but are hugely inspired by your approach to capitalism. And actually, our first, I was really hoping for a question from her. Our first listener question is from a former guest on this podcast.
There is a very, very successful British restaurant chain called Oaxaca, which does Mexican food. And the founder of Oaxaca, just to give you a little backstory, is a remarkable human being called Thomasina Myers.
Thomasina Myers was, I think I'm right in saying, winner of a British program called MasterChef. And after she won MasterChef, she set up this restaurant chain, and she came on Radical and talked to us about the huge challenges that restaurants face in this country with massively rising costs. But Oaxaca is a very, very ethical company. It tries to keep to an absolute minimum waste. It tries to hire people from tough backgrounds. It tries to give people very little ultra-processed food, and it does so in a very, very ethical spirit, which is why it is such a pleasure to have this question from Thomasina Myers.

**Thomasina Myers** (1:52)
Hi Ben, it's Tommy Myers here of Oaxaca.
Here's a question for you. When we set up Oaxaca, we really focus on the bigger picture, an unusually high number of vegetarian dishes sourcing from great small suppliers and using tech to help with low energy consumption, food waste recycling, etc. But unless your food is delicious, none of that cuts the mustard.
How much of your success is down to ethics? How much do your customers actually care about good practice? I'd love to know what you think. Can't wait to listen to the pod. Bye.

**Amol Rajan** (2:22)
Thomasina, thank you so much for that brilliant, brilliant question. So Thomasina's question, Ben, is how much of your success is down to ethics? How much do your customers actually care about good practice?

**Ben Cohen** (2:34)
You know, I think it's about 50-50. I think that the ice cream has to be great. People are really into the ice cream, and they're really into the social causes and ethics. You know, at some times in the past, I've said that it's kind of like 30-30-30, that 30% really love the company because of its social stands.
30% don't really care, they're indifferent. And 30% don't really like the social stands, but the company continues to grow. What we've noticed is that as the company takes more and more stands on political issues and how it uses its power, you know, for economic, social, racial justice, we continue to sell more and more ice cream.

**Amol Rajan** (3:26)
And just if you were, because you've been very successful in business, you made money doing it and you know how businesses grow. If you're advising a new restaurant chain, for instance, or a new, I don't know, someone selling sneakers, trainers, as we call them here, would you say that it's important to have that ethical stance where you risk 30% of people not liking your views? It's worth having that ethical stance right at the beginning?
Or can you only afford to have that ethical stance where 30% of people take against you once you've got a business that's really humming with the revenues coming in?

**Ben Cohen** (3:58)
No, I think you can do it at the very beginning.
You know, that's what Ben & Jerry's did and it seems to have worked. Actually, I think it's harder if you add it later on.

**Amol Rajan** (4:14)
It feels insincere or something?

**Ben Cohen** (4:16)
I don't know. It's not necessarily insincere, but the basis of your business, it's the idea of that thing about mission, that from the beginning, if your mission is about serving the needs of society along with serving great food, you don't have to change. It's the idea that you have a two-part mission and you need to do both of them from the beginning.