Three members of Ben & Jerry’s independent board will no longer be eligible to serve, after the ice cream company introduced a new set of governance practices.
These include a nine-year limit set on board members’ terms. President Anuradha Mittal, who previously said she had no plans to resign under pressure, is among those affected.
The move was criticized by company co-founder Ben Cohen, who called it a “blatant power grab designed to strip the board of legal authority and independence.”
His comments are the latest in a long-running dispute between Ben and Jerry’s and its owner over the Cherry Garcia maker’s social activism and the continued independence of its board of directors.
The BBC understands that Mittal will leave the company immediately, while board members Dodson and Henderson will leave later this year.
“Anuradha Mittal, Daryn Dodson and Jennifer Henderson have served this company with integrity and courage. For many years, they helped the board of directors make bold, often difficult decisions to uphold Ben & Jerry’s social mission,” said Mr. Cohen.
Ben & Jerry’s said the move aims to “preserve and enhance the brand’s historic social mission and safeguard its essential integrity.”
The Vermont-based firm is now owned by The Magnum Ice Cream Company, following a spinoff from Unilever last week that created the world’s largest independent ice cream maker.
A Magnum spokesperson said the firm wanted to build and strengthen Ben & Jerry’s “powerful, non-partisan, values-based position in the world.”
But Ben & Jerry’s would be destroyed as a brand if it remains in Magnum, Cohen told the BBC.
Ben & Jerry’s was sold to Unilever in 2000 in a deal that allowed it to retain an independent board of directors and the right to make decisions about its social mission.
Since the sale, clashes between the Vermont-based brand and Unilever have deepened, a conflict that Magnum now inherits.
In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s refused to sell its products in Israeli-occupied areas, causing Unilever to sell its Israeli operation to a local licensee.
Co-founder Jerry Greenfield left Ben & Jerry’s in September after nearly half a century with the firm, deepening a dispute with parent company Unilever.
In a letter shared on social media by Cohen, Greenfield said Ben & Jerry’s had lost its independence after Unilever stopped its social activism.
