Blocked by Unilever, Ben & Jerry's co-founder launches his own Palestine-inspired ice cream

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's, has launched a new ice cream flavor under his personal brand to express "solidarity with Palestine," saying the move comes after Unilever, Ben & Jerry's parent company, blocked the Vermont-based ice cream maker from creating it.

In an Instagram video posted on Tuesday, Cohen announced the release of a watermelon-flavored sorbet produced by his activist ice cream label, Ben's Best, which he founded in 2016. He said the dessert's colors — red, green, black, and white — represent the Palestinian flag and are meant to "call for permanent peace in Palestine and call for repairing the damage that was done there."

"I'm doing what they couldn't," Cohen said in the video, filmed in a kitchen. "I'm making a watermelon-flavoured ice cream that calls for permanent peace in Palestine and calls for repairing the damage that was done there."

The launch comes amid what Cohen described as a "long-drawn dispute" between Ben & Jerry's and Unilever over the company's ability to make statements and products aligned with its social mission. Ben & Jerry's, known for its outspoken activism on social, political, and environmental issues, has frequently clashed with its corporate owner, which acquired the company in 2000, reports the BBC.

Cohen said he intends to develop more flavors under Ben's Best that highlight issues Ben & Jerry's was "silenced" from addressing publicly. The co-founders of Ben & Jerry's have argued that Unilever and its ice cream subsidiary, Magnum, have unlawfully prevented the company from "honouring its social mission."

The dispute stems partly from Ben & Jerry's 2021 decision to stop selling its products in areas occupied by Israel. Unilever later sold its Israeli operations to a local licensee, allowing the ice cream to continue being sold in the occupied West Bank.

Cohen's announcement follows the September departure of his longtime business partner, Jerry Greenfield, from Ben & Jerry's. Greenfield said the company's independence had been undermined by Unilever's actions.

"Jerry has a really big heart and this conflict with Unilever was breaking it," Cohen said.

Cohen told the BBC's PM programme that he intends to stay involved with Ben & Jerry's to defend its founding principles. "My heart leads me to continue to work inside the company to advocate for its independence so that it can actualise the social mission, the values that it was founded on and has maintained for over 40 years," he said.

Unilever has not publicly commented on Cohen's new venture.

Ben's Best previously released the flavor "Bernie's Back" in 2016 to support former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.