Ben & Jerry's CSR Approach

In February I attended a talk by Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s. He spoke about his entrepreneurial experience and unique business model of corporate social responsibility. Jerry Greenfield got an undergrad degree in pre-med, but failed to make it to a medical school for two consecutive years. He then started Ben & Jerry’s with his close friend Ben, in Vermont. In spite of having no experience in the ice-cream industry and selling ice-cream in a very cold city, their small store managed to grow and become the ice-cream giant - Ben & Jerry’s that we know of today. Read more

What appealed to me most about his talk was the CSR approach of Ben & Jerry’s. For example, to make their ice-cream they do not use milk from cows treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone. (Treating the cows with such chemicals makes them prone to infection, which causes pain and suffering to the animal.) The company actually pays a premium to the farmers who provide them milk, if they promise to never treat their cows to this hormone!

Another interesting example was about their ice-cream, American Pie. The ice-cream comes with a special package. It has a pie chart of the US federal budget printed on it. Ben & Jerry oppose the large amount of money spent on defense & maintenance of the 10,000 odd nuclear weapons (How many does a country need? Isn’t 1 enough?). They think that the money would be better spent on things & so they just promoted this message with their ice-cream. How cool is that?

The company’s web-site also includes interactive games to educate people on similar issues. Before the talk I had never tasted Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream. The ice-creams are delicious and the company makes sense – a perfect combination of business and pleasure.