The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation has announced that it will suspend operations at the end of this year unless it wins a favourable court ruling, after The Magnum Ice Cream Company (TMICC) allegedly evicted the charity from its offices and cut its funding.The development comes as tensions continue to escalate between the charity – founded by Ben & Jerry’s co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield – and TMICC, which was born out of a spin-off of Unilever’s ice cream business in December 2025.
In a statement, Cohen said: “For Magnum Corporation to now be shutting down the Ben & Jerry's Foundation is a profound betrayal of everything it was created to stand for. And I will do everything I can to oppose this abuse of power and help Magnum to see the light.”
A spokesperson for TMICC pushed back against the claims, commenting that the company is “deeply disappointed” by the Foundation’s statement, which they said “mischaracterises events past and present”.
“The decision to suspend operations is entirely down to the trustees and their decision to ignore the findings of an independent audit and failure to put in place basic good governance; much to our dismay,” the spokesperson said.
The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation was formalised in 1985 when Ben & Jerry’s went public, established as an independent non-profit organisation supporting grassroots social justice projects. The Foundation has been funded by Unilever and TMICC since Unilever’s takeover.
Amid preparation for TMICC’s listing on the stock exchange, the company said it conducted independent audits across various parts of the business, including the Foundation. According to TMICC, this audit highlighted “failings” in financial controls, and conflicts of interest.
A source close to the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation claims that they were denied access to the audit – and that in multiple audits conducted over the past five years, no similar concerns were identified.
TMICC’s spokesperson said that the trustee president, Liz Bankowski, received a summary of the findings last Autumn.
“As Liz will recall, Ben & Jerry’s invited the Trustees to work with them on implementing a stronger governance framework, which they declined for reasons that remain unclear, and the paper policies that the Foundation put in place did not fully remedy,” they told FoodBev.
“The Foundation has since initiated legal action, again for reasons that are unclear, and more recently took the position that its staff are not Ben & Jerry’s employees – despite utilising Ben & Jerry’s offices and systems – and not bound by Ben & Jerry’s policies.”
A legal dispute between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever/TMICC has been running since 2024, when Ben & Jerry’s first filed a lawsuit against Unilever, and has since been updated to include TMICC and the Foundation.
Litigation is currently ongoing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The dispute centres around the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand and co-founder Cohen’s claims that former parent company Unilever – and now TMICC – has ‘repeatedly violated’ its social mission.
Ben & Jerry’s independent board governs the brand alongside its CEO, taking responsibility for guiding the brand’s social mission – a core part of the merger deal that saw Unilever commit to safeguarding Ben & Jerry’s values when it acquired the ice cream maker in 2000 for $326 million.
Social activism has been at the centre of the Ben & Jerry’s brand since its inception. Under Unilever and TMICC’s ownership, the brand has continued to advocate for causes such as refugee rights, workers’ rights, criminal reform and voting access, and climate initiatives.
However, the relationship between Ben & Jerry’s and its parent group has become increasingly strained in recent years after the co-founders accused Unilever/TMICC of attempting to silence their stance on geopolitical issues, particularly their expression of support for Palestinian refugees.
They have also accused the parent company of removing several members of Ben & Jerry’s leadership team due to their commitment to the brand’s social mission, including several independent board members and former CEO David Stever.
A series of governance changes introduced by Ben & Jerry’s in late 2025 led to three of the brand’s independent board members’ removal. This was a result of a newly established nine-year term limit for board members, with any director who had served longer than this period becoming ineligible for re-election.
According to BBC News, Cohen described this as a “blatant power grab designed to strip the board of legal authority and independence”.
Jochanan Senf, who TMICC appointed as Ben & Jerry’s new CEO in July last year, said the changes were made to “strengthen governance, increase transparency and commit ourselves to greater accountability”.
The latest update from The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation comes as a ‘Free Ben & Jerry’s’ campaign, launched by Cohen and Greenfield, continues to escalate internationally.
The campaign is calling for TMICC to sell off the ice cream brand to ‘more socially aligned investors’. More than 1,500 posters appeared across Amsterdam, home of TMICC’s headquarters, last week calling for a boycott of Magnum’s brands (excluding the Ben & Jerry’s brand itself).
Despite the ongoing rift, TMICC said it remains committed to supporting the Ben & Jerry’s team and its mission.
“To date, Unilever/TMICC has given $60 million in grants to grassroots causes through the Foundation, and TMICC is firmly committed to funding a grant-giving foundation, supported by appropriate governance controls to ensure it is living by its values,” the spokesperson said.
“Our focus remains where it belongs: on supporting the Ben & Jerry’s team and its three-part mission while making great ice cream and campaigning on the causes the brand cares about – and the team is doing a fantastic job.”
