Ben & Jerry's co-founder says Unilever blocked Palestine-themed ice cream (www.bbc.com)
from themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to world@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 12:44
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/56527420

#world

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NOT_RICK@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 12:53 next collapse

“now is not the right time to invest in developing this product”.

There it is, the most corporately banal statement ever

NRay7882@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 13:59 collapse

‘Now is not the right time’ is business code for ‘this will impact our bottom dollar’, the same excuse politicians give after every school shooting.

frongt@lemmy.zip on 29 Oct 21:25 collapse

Bottom line. Bottom dollar is your last one.

psx_crab@lemmy.zip on 29 Oct 13:11 next collapse

Nestle, Unilever, Mondelez, who else should i add to my boycott list?

Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca on 29 Oct 13:16 next collapse

Johnson and Johnson

fulcrummed@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 14:30 collapse

Be specific about your reasons for J&J or people may assume it’s a tylenol thing. Next thing you know there’s a red hat surgically attached to your head, your IQ matches your shoe size, and your cousin has become inexplicably sexually attractive.

Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca on 29 Oct 14:47 next collapse

True. Mainly because asbestos in baby powder is an acceptable ingredient apparently.

dubyakay@lemmy.ca on 29 Oct 15:05 next collapse

I’m glad I only ever applied that shit on my feet while wafting the baby powder scent into my face.

idiomaddict@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 15:17 collapse

Not only that, but they knew about it at the same time that they were aggressively advertising to black and Hispanic women, telling them to powder their crotches, which caused a bunch of uterine cancer

kameecoding@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 16:37 collapse

I remember the good ol time when J&J was boycotted for the covid vaccine, how reasonable it would seem in contrast to what’s happening nowadays

WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 13:35 next collapse

Capitalism… All of it.

There isn’t a single multinational that acts based on ethics or morality.

mjr@infosec.pub on 29 Oct 14:02 next collapse

Depends if you view any larges co-ops as a multinational, or are they merely alliances? Not all capitalist, though.

defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 29 Oct 15:19 collapse

I wouldn’t consider worker coops to be capitalist, since by its very nature, it’s “workers owning the means of production.”

mjr@infosec.pub on 29 Oct 15:58 collapse

Well, that’s Mondragon OK then. And the other sorts of co-op? I think the consumer co-ops may be the biggest.

defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 29 Oct 23:37 collapse

Definitely better than a standard corporation, but since the workers aren’t the owners, they can still be exploited at the end of the day. With worker coops, the workers democratically run the business that they spend most of their waking hours working at. With consumer coops, the consumers decide how the business is run (in an ideal scenario), but the workers don’t get a say, or at least don’t get more of a say than consumers, assuming the workers are also consumers.

mjr@infosec.pub on 30 Oct 00:55 collapse

hmmm… but at least they’re being exploited for the benefit of the commonwealth not the capital! (whistles past the graveyard)

jasoman@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 15:18 collapse

What about Arizona Ice Tea?

arrow74@lemmy.zip on 29 Oct 14:57 next collapse

Basically every corporation at this point. Buy local when you can, even if you disagree with the local person’s politics if your only alternative is a megacorp go with the local source.

They can be a shitty person, but they won’t have the capital to invest in overseas slavery and election interference like mega corps

random_character_a@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 15:32 collapse

Monsanto would be a good addition.

psx_crab@lemmy.zip on 29 Oct 16:07 collapse

I’m not in the US so this one is easy

random_character_a@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 20:52 collapse

German Bayer bought it after it was on thin ice due to the roundup lawsuits.

CaptainBasculin@lemmy.bascul.in on 29 Oct 13:42 next collapse

I’m totally behind the message, but honestly watermelon ice cream is a terrible idea. Taste of watermelon is very mid for ice cream, i wonder how Ben could pull it.

idiomaddict@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 15:18 next collapse

It can be incredible for sherbet, though.

Zahille7@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 16:47 collapse

There’s a fast food chain the southeast US called Cook Out, and in the summer they have a seasonal watermelon milkshake that’s just watermelon and vanilla ice cream, and it is honestly SO GOOD. There are bits of watermelon in the shake that kinda freeze up a little and soak up some of the vanilla.

I think it could be done.

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today on 29 Oct 18:36 collapse

I make ice cream for a living, and watermelon is very difficult to pull off without artificial flavoring.

To start with, it has a lot of water in it, which is bad for making quality ice cream. You have to filter out as much as possible, and collect only the pulp. Since watermelon has a very mild taste, it takes a LOT of pulp, which still carries a lot of water in it.

Bottom line is that it is difficult to collect enough pulp to carry enough flavor, without adding too much water, and compromising the creaminess.

Of course, some artificial flavoring would do the job easily, but I am fundamentally opposed to that in my ice cream, and I would imagine Ben is as well.

Gates9@sh.itjust.works on 29 Oct 13:55 next collapse

I’ve met Jerry, he literally served me ice cream, lol. He’s a very nice man. That being said, my response to this controversy has basically been “then why did you sell your company?”…What, they thought Unilever would just be like “sure, use our brand to do a swan dive into the most controversial subject on the planet! Great idea guys!”…Of course they’re going to block it.

frunch@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 14:12 next collapse

I’ve wondered that too. Were they sold into the idea that when the company is making lots more money it can do lots more good with it? Or are they really business men deep down struggling with their morals after seeing what happened to their ‘baby’?

foodandart@lemmy.zip on 29 Oct 14:16 next collapse

…Were they sold into the idea that when the company is making lots more money it can do lots more good with it?

This. I remember the PR that came out at the time.

mjr@infosec.pub on 29 Oct 15:55 collapse

the idea that when the company is making lots more money it can do lots more good with it

The sales pitch of co-op carpet-baggers to their members since time began! It seems that “social entrepreneurs” aren’t immune to the siren song.

einkorn@feddit.org on 29 Oct 14:36 next collapse

AFAIK there is some clause in the sales contract that protects B&Js political activism as a brand.

It’s been in the news a couple of times over the years as they clashed with their new parent company.

Gates9@sh.itjust.works on 29 Oct 14:49 next collapse

I guess that’s something but still

Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 15:57 collapse

They got 25 years. That’s a pretty good run.

kautau@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 16:40 collapse

And more than half a billion dollars adjusting for inflation

snooggums@piefed.world on 29 Oct 16:27 collapse

Not enough to put out a product supporting Palestine...

taiyang@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 14:39 next collapse

Imagine if they went full exploitive and made the ice cream flavor but then added an Israel flavor in some twisted fair and balanced way to undercut Jerry’s wishes.

ToastedRavioli@midwest.social on 29 Oct 14:51 next collapse

Jaffa Orange Surprise; the surprise is that the container is empty in honor of all the starvation theyve forced on other people

frongt@lemmy.zip on 29 Oct 21:25 collapse

Tastes like ashes and concrete dust.

explodicle@sh.itjust.works on 29 Oct 16:09 collapse

Off The Pager: it has pop rocks that go off in your mouth after 30 seconds

Seas Fire: it’s filled with sweet candies that have denatonium in them. But between those it’s quite mild.

tetris11@feddit.uk on 29 Oct 17:32 next collapse

Usually big company goes to small company and says “we want to buy you instead of competing with you, and if we compete with you, you better be prepared to dig hard into your savings.”

Both sides smile at each other, and the small company capitulates whilst making themselves seem as big as possible.

TLDR: Sell out, or be muscled out

UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 18:15 collapse

I would have sold too. I don’t know what he sold for, but it’s probably hard to even imagine having this much. He gave up all riscs and he can still make his new flavour under a new brand if he really wants to.

foodandart@lemmy.zip on 29 Oct 14:13 next collapse

More to the point, in America, the USDA regulations allow for hard pack ice cream to have up to 40% of its volume expanded with air.

WAAaaaay back in the early 2000’s after Unilever bought them, I bought a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla ice cream and got home and it sat on the counter and melted - much to my dismay - (It ended up under a towel and did not get put away.)

When I opened it, the level of ice cream in the container had dropped down by almost a quarter. What the hell? So I got another pint and at that time noticed that it was easier to scoop - a sign that there’s air being incorporated.

Yeah… nope. Done.

Haven’t bought Ben & Jerry’s in over 20 years. (besides, there’s a real homemade ice cream shop around the corner from my home - it’s what I get now and I support the woman that runs it.)

dubyakay@lemmy.ca on 29 Oct 15:01 next collapse

It’s not like that currently. Ben & Jerry’s is very dense. At least in Canada.

yucandu@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 15:55 next collapse

yeah because we live in a country with laws up here

mjr@infosec.pub on 29 Oct 15:59 next collapse

Ben & Jerry’s is very dense

Apparently so dense that they thought Unilever wouldn’t interfere with the campaigning.

snooggums@piefed.world on 29 Oct 16:29 collapse

It is the most dense ice cream that I purchase in the US.

howrar@lemmy.ca on 29 Oct 15:25 collapse

Ice cream should be sold by weight. Volume makes Calorie counting so much more complicated.

yucandu@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 15:56 next collapse

That’s almost as tacky as my Uighur-themed weed strain.

ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one on 29 Oct 21:52 collapse

It would be very based if Ben & Jerry would name their ice cream “Israel is Committing Genocide”, “War Crimes by Israel”, and “Oh look! The World is Enabling Genocide of the Palestinian people”.