The bitter fight between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever
Lesson summary
Hi everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English lesson number 502. JR is the producer, you met him last week. He has uploaded all the content for the full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/502. The full content includes a free transcript, a how-to video, practice exercises, and more. PlainEnglish.com/502.
Last week, you heard about the—let’s call it “unique arrangement” that Ben & Jerry’s has with its parent company. If you haven’t heard that lesson, you can find it at PlainEnglish.com/501. But as a reminder, here’s what happened: In the year 2000, Ben & Jerry’s sold itself to Unilever, the food giant .
As a condition of the sale, Unilever was required to let Ben & Jerry’s keep its own Board of Directors, and that Board of Directors would control the brand’s social mission. For over twenty years, this arrangement seemed to work for both sides. Ben & Jerry’s continued to be the socially-conscious company. Unilever got the benefit of owning a premium ice cream brand. But that all fell apart this year, and that’s what today’s lesson is about.
In the second half, we’ll talk about the expression “take exception to” and we have a quote of the week. Let’s get going!
A bitter fight over a sweet product
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is sold in about 35 countries. You can find it in all of North America, Brazil, most of Europe, and parts of Asia and the Caribbean. You can find it in Israel, where there’s a Ben & Jerry’s factory, and you could even get the company’s unique flavors in the Palestinian territory.
The Palestinian territory. These are three disputed areas, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Israel took control of this land in the Six Day War in 1967 and Israel has controlled it ever since. The United Nations considers this an illegal occupation, a violation of international law. Israel disagrees.
Ben & Jerry’s makes ice cream. As an ice cream maker , it had not taken a political stance on whether Israel’s occupation was legal or not. Most companies don’t take political stands on something so divisive.
But Ben & Jerry’s also has a history of social activism. And on July 19, 2021, Ben & Jerry’s issued a press release saying that it would stop selling its ice cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The company said that selling its products there was “not consistent with [its] values.” In an FAQ in the press release, the company said it has a history of advocating for “human rights, and economic and social justice.” The company said that it didn’t want its own products to be sold in an “illegal occupation.”
The company then found itself in the middle of a controversy. Israel and its supporters, not surprisingly, took exception to the press release. The owner of the Israel factory that makes Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for sale in the region strongly disagreed with the move. Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister, called it a disgraceful surrender to anti-Semitism.
Several U.S. states also disagreed with the move. And they decided to act on their disagreement, by pulling state investment money from the parent company, Unilever.
Ah, right: the parent company. The parent company agreed in 2000 to let Ben & Jerry’s make decisions like this. But now Unilever was feeling the heat. Now, the Ben & Jerry’s decision about its ice cream in the West Bank was impacting Unilever’s business. And Unilever is one of the biggest consumer products companies in the world.
Unilever wanted to lower the temperature of the debate. Big companies don’t like to be under fire for politics; they can’t win by playing that game. So they went looking for a workaround. And here’s what they decided.
The ice cream in the Middle East was manufactured by a contract manufacturer. So Unilever decided to sell its Ben & Jerry’s business in Israel to that company. The buyer, then , would license the Ben & Jerry’s recipes from Unilever, paying Unilever for the privilege. And they, the buyers, would be the ones to make and sell the ice cream in the Palestinian territories.
It sounded like an elegant solution. Ben & Jerry’s could legitimately say that neither it nor Unilever was “selling” ice cream in the Palestinian territories. But they would still make money from licensing the recipes to a local manufacturer. Local customers could still get their favorite flavors. The package would be printed in Hebrew and Arabic and it would not have the American trademarks. Unilever went ahead with the sale in June and told the Ben & Jerry’s people about it later.
This is the sort of perfect compromise that works in the boardroom of big companies. But it didn’t work for the people who truly cared about the issues. The Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors thought this was a sell-out and they didn’t appreciate the fact that they weren’t consulted before Unilever sold the Israel business. So the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors sued Unilever, saying the Ben & Jerry’s brand would suffer irreparable damage as a result of this decision. Unilever said the deal was done and couldn’t be cancelled.
If that sounds strange, it is. In short, a part of Unilever sued Unilever itself. A judge recently rejected the Ben & Jerry’s attempt to stop the sale, saying that there would not be irreparable harm to the brand. So for now, Unilever won the case against its own subsidiary.
Unilever won in court and Unilever got what it wanted in the Palestinian territories. But think about who they won against: they defeated their own subsidiary! So now Unilever has a disgruntled brand in its portfolio. Some press reports say that relations between Ben & Jerry’s and parent Unilever have broken down. And it’s calling into question the viability of a brand maintaining control over social and political missions.
Social issues ‘okay’; political ones…not so much
Big companies can typically get away with taking a stand on social issues like higher wages, protecting the environment, things like that. But when they wade into international politics, the stakes are so much higher.
I don’t have too much sympathy for Ben & Jerry’s people though. I know that Unilever said Ben & Jerry’s could continue to make all decisions about its social mission. But that’s something that big buyers always say. A year or two in, things usually start to change. And keeping a social mission is fine, as long as you don’t poke the bear, as long as you don’t make the big parent company too angry. The surprising thing, at least to me, is that that there hasn’t been a big dispute until now.
Great stories make learning English fun
