50 Fun Facts About Ben & Jerry's

Ben & Jerry's chunky style grew out of co-founder Ben Cohen having almost none of which sense?

Smell is the sense Ben Cohen largely lacks, so he judged ice cream by texture and kept adding bigger and bigger chunks to keep it interesting.

Before settling on ice cream, the founders of Ben & Jerry's first planned to open a shop selling what?

Bagels were the original plan, but the equipment cost too much, so Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield signed up for an ice cream course instead.

Ben & Jerry's opened its first scoop shop in Burlington, Vermont, inside what kind of renovated building?

A gas station housed the first shop, which opened on a $12,000 investment. It was knocked down four years later to make room for a parking lot.

Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia, its first flavor named for a rock legend, honors the guitarist of which band?

Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia got the tribute in 1987 after two fans from Portland, Maine, sent in the idea.

What happened to the Cowmobile, the mobile home Ben & Jerry's drove cross-country in 1986 serving free scoops?

It burned down outside Cleveland four months into the trip. Nobody was hurt, and the two founders had been doing the driving and the scooping themselves.

Which late-night host inspired Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream, vanilla with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces?

Stephen Colbert chose the recipe from three unmarked pints he tasted with his family, and he gives his proceeds from the flavor to charity.

To protest oil drilling in a wildlife refuge, Ben & Jerry's hauled a 900-pound version of which dessert to the Capitol?

Baked Alaska made the point: the target was drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the giant dessert was built from Fossil Fuel ice cream.

In 2017, Ben & Jerry's shops in which country banned two scoops of the same flavor until same-sex marriage was legal?

Australia was the target: the ban on matching double scoops was meant to push customers into contacting their MPs about marriage equality.

Which band has a Ben & Jerry's flavor of chocolate ice cream with marshmallow and caramel swirls?

Phish Food comes studded with fudge fish, and the band steers part of its royalties from every pint toward protecting Lake Champlain's watershed.

At Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard in Vermont, what marks the resting place of each discontinued flavor?

A granite headstone with a witty epitaph stands over every retired flavor, in a real plot on the hill above the factory that visitors can walk through.

Which multinational bought Ben & Jerry's in 2000 for $326 million while promising to keep its social mission?

Unilever accepted an unusual condition to close the deal: an independent board stayed in place to guard Ben & Jerry's social mission and product quality.

Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack and The Tonight Dough were both created for which television host?

Jimmy Fallon unveiled both flavors on air with the founders, and he donates his proceeds from The Tonight Dough to a network of camps for seriously ill children.

Which Ben & Jerry's flavor mixes chocolate and vanilla ice creams with cookie dough and fudge brownies?

Half Baked topped the company's own ranking of its most popular flavors in 2020, one place ahead of Cherry Garcia.

What was Ben & Jerry's celebrating when it launched Free Cone Day in 1979?

Its first anniversary was the occasion: the founders thanked the customers who had kept the shop alive with free scoops all day, and the giveaway spread to shops worldwide.

Which rival ice cream brand tried to squeeze Ben & Jerry's out of Boston freezers in 1984, prompting a lawsuit?

Häagen-Dazs pressed its Boston distributors to drop the newcomer, so Ben & Jerry's sued its owner, Pillsbury, and ran a cheeky campaign aimed at the Doughboy.

Which streaming service teamed up with Ben & Jerry's on a peanut butter ice cream with pretzel swirls and brownies?

Netflix lent its name to Netflix & Chilll'd, a pint pitched at viewers who can't decide between a sweet snack and a salty one.

Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey loads banana ice cream with fudge chunks and which kind of nut?

Walnuts give Chunky Monkey its crunch, and the recipe proved sturdy enough to be one of the first four flavors remade without dairy in 2016.

Before co-founding Ben & Jerry's, Jerry Greenfield was rejected more than once when applying to study what?

Medicine was the goal after his pre-med studies, but two rounds of rejections left him working as a lab technician until the ice cream idea came along.

Ben & Jerry's marked Elton John's first Vermont concert with a flavor punning on which of his albums?

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road became Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road in 2008, a flavor made to welcome Elton John to Vermont for the first concert he had ever played there.

Ben & Jerry's teamed up with which sportswear brand on a sneaker called the Chunky Dunky?

Nike released the Chunky Dunky as a special edition of its SB Dunk Low skate shoe, which is where the Dunky in the name comes from.

Ben & Jerry's founders learned to make ice cream through a $5 correspondence course from which university?

Penn State taught the pair by mail, and that $5 lesson plus $12,000, a third of it borrowed, was all they had when the first shop opened.

Which U.S. president named the founders of Ben & Jerry's Small Business Persons of the Year at the White House?

Ronald Reagan presented the award in the Rose Garden, where Jerry wore the one suit he owned and Ben turned up in an Italian waiter's jacket.

Ben & Jerry's Liz Lemon Greek frozen yogurt honored a sitcom character created and played by which comedian?

Tina Fey's lead character from the NBC sitcom 30 Rock joined the company's Greek frozen yogurt line in 2013, a year after the line launched.

Ben & Jerry's retired flavor Fossil Fuel hid fudge pieces shaped like which creatures in sweet cream ice cream?

Dinosaurs made of fudge were the draw of Fossil Fuel, which lasted five years on shelves before it was buried in the Flavor Graveyard in 2010.

Which Ben & Jerry's flavor, vanilla malt ice cream with fudge-covered pretzels, began as a prank on a co-worker?

Chubby Hubby started as a lie: two pranksters convinced a colleague the flavor already existed, felt guilty, and made him a real batch that everyone loved.

Ben & Jerry's flavor Wavy Gravy was named for a clown and activist best known from which music festival?

Woodstock made Wavy Gravy famous as the man making announcements from the stage, and sales of his flavor helped pay for underprivileged kids to attend his camp.

Ben & Jerry's first vegan pints, launched in 2016 after a fan petition, swapped dairy for a drink made from what?

Almonds supplied the base after fans petitioned for a dairy-free pint, and the first four flavors included vegan takes on two existing flavors.

Which Vermont town is home to the only Ben & Jerry's factory that opens its doors for public tours?

Waterbury has the company's very first factory, built in 1985, which still turns out upwards of 350,000 pints a day while tour groups watch from above.

Ben & Jerry's made the first Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream in 1984 after what sparked the idea?

An anonymous note on the shop's suggestion board asked for it, but the flavor took until 1991 to reach pints, where it shot to the top of the best-seller list.

Ben & Jerry's renamed a flavor Yes Pecan to celebrate the election victory of which U.S. president?

Barack Obama's win inspired the name, a pun on his campaign's rallying cry, and the proceeds from the flavor were donated to a nonprofit education fund.

Greyston Bakery, which bakes the brownies in Ben & Jerry's pints, fills its job openings in what unusual way?

A waiting list is all it takes: the next name on it is offered a paid apprenticeship with no interview and no background check.

Ben & Jerry's ran a public essay contest in the mid-1990s as part of its search to fill which job?

Chief executive was the job on offer once Ben Cohen stepped aside, though the man hired, Robert Holland Jr., left after 20 months over philosophical differences.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the founders of Ben & Jerry's, first became friends in 1963 as seventh graders where?

In gym class at their junior high in Merrick, New York, the pair struck up a friendship that lasted through high school and into business 15 years later.

Ben & Jerry's sold a charoset-flavored ice cream in Israel to mark which Jewish holiday?

Passover brought the limited flavor, modeled on the sweet relish of fruit and nuts that sits on the seder plate.

Ben & Jerry's retired White Russian flavor, sold from 1986 to 1996, blended its ice cream with which liqueur brand?

Kahlúa went into coffee ice cream to mimic the cocktail, and the flavor lasted a full decade before it was laid to rest in the Flavor Graveyard.

Ben & Jerry's Rainforest Crunch, sold from 1989 to 1999, featured a buttery crunch of cashews and which other nut?

Brazil nuts and cashews went into the brittle that gave the flavor its name, and after a ten-year run it was retired to the Flavor Graveyard.

A Ben & Jerry's shop near Harvard created a 2012 frozen yogurt in honor of which basketball player?

Jeremy Lin, a Harvard alumnus, got a vanilla frozen yogurt with lychee honey swirls, and the company apologized after one cookie ingredient drew complaints of stereotyping.

Ben & Jerry's Vermonster, a 20-scoop creation with hot fudge, cookies and whipped cream, is served in what?

A bucket holds the whole thing, and at the charity Vermonster Challenge, begun in 2009, teams of four raced to finish one for a year of free ice cream.

Ben & Jerry's joined a campaign with WWF to protect which World Heritage site from dredging and dumping?

Great Barrier Reef protection turned into a fight: politicians accused Ben & Jerry's of exaggerating the threat, and one environment minister urged a boycott.

Ben & Jerry's Black and Tan flavor, named after a beer drink, stirred controversy in which country?

Ireland remembers the Black and Tans as a British paramilitary force with a reputation for brutality in its War of Independence, so the name landed badly there.

Which country music legend had a Ben & Jerry's flavor called Country Peach Cobbler?

Willie Nelson's peach pint set up a mock feud with a late-night host who had a new flavor of his own, and the singer went on the show to settle it.

Which group partnered with Ben & Jerry's in 2002 on One Sweet Whirled, a flavor tied to a global warming campaign?

Dave Matthews Band joined the company and a coalition website on the project, so every pint doubled as an invitation to sign up for climate action.

Ben & Jerry's first sorbets, introduced in 1996, included a flavor with a punning name taken from which comic strip?

Doonesbury became Doonesberry Sorbet, a pun that outlived the product: the flavor was later sent to the Flavor Graveyard while other sorbets stayed in scoop shops.

Ben & Jerry's partnered with which chocolate maker to campaign against child labor in the cocoa industry?

Tony's Chocolonely was started by a Dutch television journalist as a protest against slavery in the chocolate trade, which made it a natural ally.

Before Ben & Jerry's, co-founder Ben Cohen left college without a degree while pursuing an interest in which craft?

Pottery was Ben Cohen's passion in the years before ice cream: he dropped out of college after his sophomore year, long before chunks and swirls took over.

Proceeds from Ben & Jerry's The Tonight Dough support a children's camp network founded by which movie star?

Paul Newman launched the first camp in 1988 so that children with serious illnesses could simply enjoy being kids, and it grew into a network of free camps around the world.

Ben & Jerry's Cool Britannia, sold from 1995 to 1998, mixed strawberries with fudge-covered pieces of which biscuit?

Shortbread and strawberries gave the flavor its British accent, and it arrived just a year after the company's pints first reached shops in the United Kingdom.

Ben & Jerry's Save Our Swirled flavor called for action at a major climate conference held in which city?

Paris hosted the 2015 talks, and the flavor's initials spelled out the distress call SOS to press the company's point about a warming planet.

Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen launched the Stamp Stampede to stamp political messages onto what?

Dollar bills became his billboard: every one he stamped carried a call for a constitutional amendment to curb corporate money in politics.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's grew up in the town of Merrick in which part of New York?

Long Island raised both founders, who went through junior high and Calhoun High School together before leaving for separate colleges.