I know Ben and Jerry's basically completely sucks since their corporate takeover, but I live in hope that at least some bit of decency remains.

Vote to bring back Wavy Gravy!

*chokes on his tounge!*

I thought they set out to be a corporation...

Wavy Gravy sounds like an odd name for an ice cream unless you are old enought to know who Wavy Gravy was....and I see that the proceeds from the sale of that brand went to one of his charities...

They set out to make good ice cream and make a bit of money as well.

Ok, "huge corporate sell-out" then.

Good point, Jeff. I should have mentioned that.

Let's not be too hard on Ben & Jerry's. They are after all lending support to Cindy Sheehan. When I was getting my MBA (I know the degree is not very left, but the school certainly was) we used Ben & Jerry's Annual Report for our study in accounting. At the time, their CEO was limited to a salary of only 22 times the lowest paid worker, very different from nearly every other corporation. Also, I believe they practice double- and maybe even triple-bottom line accounting. Has this changed in the last few years?

Yes, it has.

Here is their mission statement:

We have a progressive, nonpartisan social mission that seeks to meet human needs and eliminate injustices in our local, national and international communities by integrating these concerns into our day-to-day business activities. Our focus is on children and families, the environment and sustainable agriculture on family farms.

Capitalism and the wealth it produces do not create opportunity for everyone equally. We recognize that the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than at anytime since the 1920's.We strive to create economic opportunities for those who have been denied them and to advance new models of economic justice that are sustainable and replicable.

By definition, the manufacturing of products creates waste. We strive to minimize our negative impact on the environment.

The growing of food is overly reliant on the use of toxic chemicals and other methods that are unsustainable. We support sustainable and safe methods of food production that reduce environmental degradation, maintain the productivity of the land over time, and support the economic viability of family farms and rural communities.

We seek and support nonviolent ways to achieve peace and justice. We believe government resources are more productively used in meeting human needs than in building and maintaining weapons systems.

We strive to show a deep respect for human beings inside and outside our company and for the communities in which they live.

My comment...

Wouldn't it be nice if GE had a similar mission statement?

Is that the current mission statement?

Aside from anything else, I object to the fact that they are charging a huge sum of money for what is supposed to be premium ice cream, yet have changed from using chocolate to "chocolately" chunks in the relevant flavors.

Um, no. Not for £/$3.50 and above a pint.

Besides, they got rid of the best flavors.

But the salary structure you note above is long gone.

ETA--anyone would come out good compared to GE. I think a slightly more meaningful standard might be in order here.

Compensation Ratio
In 1985 the Company implemented a 5-to-1 salary ratio, which limited top salaries to five times the lowest salary. In 1995 when
we began recruiting nationwide for a Ben & Jerry’s CEO, we realized that our salary ratio policy would prevent us from being
able to offer competitive compensation for the leadership skills and competencies we needed. At that point, we discontinued the
formal practice of the compressed salary ratio policy. Since then, in our annual Social & Environmental Reports, we have continued
to track and report on the ratio between the lowest and highest paid employees. However, with the change of ownership and
restructuring of our organization, compensation, benefits and bonus arrangements have taken on additional complexities that make
it impossible to create apples-to-apples comparisons between the highest and lowest compensations at Ben & Jerry’s.
Consequently, we have decided to eliminate this section altogether, while to continuing to track and report on gender equity and balance.

http://www.benjerry.com/our_company/about_...04/sea_2004.pdf


but the brownies still come from greyson's bakery...

i still want fresh georgia peach back. they killed the flavor cause the trucks of peaches couldn't be trucked to vermont fast enough!

i had some chunky monkey today...

I'd forgotten Fresh Georgia Peach!! It was SO GOOD.

How COULD you remind me? I'd forgotten how miserable I was, now it all comes flooding back.

There's another thing you can't get in this darn country. Good peach ice cream. Or any peach ice cream for that matter. So, no peach ice cream, no Mexican food and no grits.

Otherwise it's fabulous.

Double-J and I are going to invest in an ice cream maker and make our own next summer. Of course, we said that last summer... Where does the time go?

It is the mission statement they currently have on their website.


I'll give you that there salary structure has become less progressive, but I think price and product line are poor reasons to disparage an otherwise socially responsible company. The link in Keri's posting describes their committment to being socially responsible.


So give me a standard. I'll put Ben & Jerry's up against 95% of the for profit international corporations out there (wait make that 99%).

I posted this in food, but this week's new york times has a million ice cream recipes.

Even if I give you everything you've said, that doesn't mean I'm not still disappointed by the changes they've made. And considering that their reason for being is to make ice cream, it seems very pertinant to disparage them for reducing the quality of their product while inflating the price.

I don't go around doing a lot of disparaging, actually. I just don't buy it (other than very, very occasionally.)

ETA--LitUS--just to point out that £3.69, which is the standard price here, is about $7.00 a pint. For that I think I deserve real chocolate at the very least.

At the start of this thread, you said, "I know Ben and Jerry's basically completely sucks since their corporate takeover, but I live in hope that at least some bit of decency remains."

I was curious why you reached this conclusion given what I knew of the organization. It seems that your real concerns were with price and product line.

I was merely trying to point out that Ben & Jerry's does not "completely suck" and that a good bit of "decency remains".

P.S. Did you see my question about Humble Bagel in the Food thread?

Mmmm. Peach ice cream.

Ben and Jerry's donated a bunch of ice cream to radio free brattleboro a few weeks ago for a fundraiser.

As I've mentioned before, my foodie past was spent largely in ice cream (need a prune and armangac ice cream to complement your four-star fall menu? Something with candied French chestnuts? An authentic khulfee? Want to foozle with tea? I was the go-to girl). I've never been overly impressed with Ben and Jerry's, but they are probably the best you can get at the supermarket. But "chocolatey" chunks? Damn. That's just wrong.

Maria completely loses all persepective when dealing with the question of whether Ben & Jerry's suck or not.

I think the products are overpriced in the UK. And when I looked at a pot of ice cream that supposedly contained chocolate I noted that the chocolate was indeed such a thing and not a chocolatey flavoured alternative.

I pointed this out to the love of my life but it di'n't cut no ice!

i am a bit worried that the wobblies now have a mission statement

sorry if this is not the thread to raise it but it has been on my mind

i hate wobbly jelly with ice cream by the way!

Me too!

Those things should never be in the same dish together. Eeeeeeugh!

My mum used to try and make my bro and I have bloddy evaporated milk on our jelly!

How cruel is that?

very!

but if you whisk the milk into the jelly before it sets you get a rather scrummy mousse type of thing. I had a boyfriend whose mum did that. She was belgian.

Beryl, the mission statement you pointed to is the preamble to the IWW constitution. It has been a part of the Wobblies since they were founded a hundred years ago.

i know

but the very words 'mission statement' send a chilll down my spine.

it is american management speak which has always meant redundancy for me

i'll bet gate gourmet have a bloddy mission statement.



so, pam .. i was taken aback when i saw it on the wobblies site i am not a reactionary and have embraced change as a trades union organiser but it does seem a bit of a giant leap for the IWW whose usual prose can seem a bit antiquated scary stuff!

but i think i can get a song book by paypal now .. so there is an upside

You know that really isn't going to help that poor boys waistline!

I've got such lovely memories of an ex boyfriend and his icecream maker...

Success! Back for a short time only it seems, but with luck it'll be in the shops when we are in the US (and my weight loss program is temporarily suspended.) It's not possible to gain back the two stone I've lost already in 19 days, is it?

It would take a kobayashi feat of eating for 19 days running to gain 2 stone in 19 days. Will you be returning to Eugene?

In addition to Wavy Gravy, there is now Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream...

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/...on/16699314.htm