Ben & Jerry’s, the Vermont ice cream icon behind flavours like Cherry Garcia, has ousted three independent board directors amid new governance rules following its split from Unilever last week.
Now owned by The Magnum Ice Cream Company—the world’s largest standalone ice cream firm—the changes impose a nine-year term limit, affecting chair Anuradha Mittal (who refused to resign under pressure), Daryn Dodson, and Jennifer Henderson. BBC sources say Ms. Mittal leaves immediately, with the others by year-end.
Co-founder Ben Cohen slammed the move as a “blatant power grab designed to strip the board of legal authority and independence.”
“Anuradha Mittal, Daryn Dodson, and Jennifer Henderson have served this company with integrity and courage. Over many years, they helped the board make bold, often difficult decisions to uphold Ben & Jerry’s social mission,” Cohen stated.
The company claims the reforms preserve and enhance the brand’s historical social mission and safeguard its essential integrity. Magnum vows to strengthen its powerful, non-partisan values-based position in the world. Yet Cohen warned the BBC that staying with Magnum would “destroy” the brand.
Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 for $326 million, granting an independent board for social causes. Tensions flared in 2021 over halting sales in Israeli-occupied areas, leading Unilever to sell the local franchise. Co-founder Jerry Greenfield quit in September after 50 years, citing lost autonomy in a letter shared by Cohen.
Magnum, with €8 billion in annual sales, inherits the strife—valued at $1.5 billion for Ben & Jerry’s. As 2025 ends, the question lingers: will its activist ethos survive corporate control?