BEN & JERRY’S co-found Jerry Greenfield has left the ice cream maker after claiming he has been “silenced” by parent company Unilever.

Founded in the United States in 1978, Ben & Jerry’s is known for championing progressive causes, including protecting the environment and promoting human rights.

In 2000, Unilever purchased Ben & Jerry’s for $326 million.

Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever have increasingly clashed since 2021, when the ice cream maker said it would stop selling in the occupied Palestinian territories.

When Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop sales in the West Bank, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X: “Now we Israelis know which ice cream NOT to buy.”

A year later, in 2022, Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever to prevent the ice cream from being sold in the West Bank, but a US court blocked this move by Ben & Jerry’s.

Last year, Unilever announced that it would separate its ice cream unit, whose top-selling products include Ben & Jerry’s and Magnum, as a standalone business.

The new standalone firm, The Magnum Ice Cream Company, is on track to begin operating by mid-November.

In a statement today, shared by fellow co-found Ben Cohen, Greenfield said that “the independence to pursue our values” was “guaranteed when Unilever bought the company.”

After 47 years, Jerry has made the difficult decision to step down from the company we built together. I’m sharing his words as he resigns from Ben & Jerry’s. His legacy deserves to be true to our values, not silenced by @MagnumGlobal #FreeBenAndJerrys pic.twitter.com/EZXGRjs76a

— Ben Cohen (@YoBenCohen) September 17, 2025

“For more than twenty years under their ownership, Ben & Jerry’s stood up and spoke out in support of peace, justice, and human rights, not as abstract concepts, but in relation to real events happening in our world,” said Greenfield.

He added that this independence “existed in no small part because of the unique merger agreement negotiated with Unilever, one that enshrined our social mission and values in the company’s governance structure in perpetuity”.

“It’s profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone,” said Greenfield.

He further remarks that this is “happening at a time when our country’s current administration is attacking civil rights, voting rights, the rights of immigrants, women, and the LGBT community”.

Greenfield said it was with a “broken heart” that he decided he can “no longer, in good conscience, remain an employee of Ben & Jerry’s”.

“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,” said Greenfield.

He added: “It’s easy to stand up and speak out when there’s nothing at risk. The real test of values is when times are challenging and you have something to lose.”

“It was always about more than just ice cream; it was a way to spread love and invite others into the fight for equity, justice and a better world,” said Greenfield.

“Coming to the conclusion that this is no longer possible at Ben & Jerry’s means I can no longer remain part of Ben & Jerry’s.”

Ben & Jerry co-founders Greenfield and Cohen are well-known for their public activism.

Earlier this year, Cohen was ejected from the US Senate over a Gaza protest.

Cohen was among a group of protesters who startled Health Secretary  Robert F Kennedy Jr. by interrupting his testimony about his department’s budget proposal.

I told Congress they're killing poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs, and they're paying for it by kicking poor kids off Medicaid in the US. This was the authorities' response. pic.twitter.com/uOf7xrzzWM

— Ben Cohen (@YoBenCohen) May 14, 2025

“It got to a point where we had to do something,” Cohen said in an interview after his release, calling it “scandalizing” that the US approved “$20 billion worth of bombs” for Israel even as social programs are squeezed back home.

“The majority of Americans hate what’s going on, what our country is doing with our money and in our name,” he said.