Company History: Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. produces super premium ice cream, frozen yogurt, and ice cream novelties in rich and original flavors. The company sells its unique offerings in grocery stores, restaurants, and franchised ice cream shops, and it holds about one-third of the market for its products. Started by two friends who never intended to become big businessmen, Ben & Jerry's is distinguished by a corporate philosophy that stresses social action and liberal ideals in addition to profit making, and is known for innovative and creative marketing devices that express this unorthodox spirit.
Ben & Jerry's was founded in May 1978, when Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened an ice cream shop in Burlington, Vermont. Cohen had been teaching crafts, and Greenfield had been working as a lab technician when the two decided that 'we wanted to do something that would be more fun,' as Greenfield later told People magazine. In addition, the two wanted to live in a small college town. In 1977, they moved to Burlington, Vermont, and completed a five dollar correspondence course in ice cream making from Pennsylvania State University. With $12,000 in start-up money, a third of which they borrowed, the two renovated an old gas station on a corner in downtown Burlington and opened Ben & Jerry's Homemade.
The first Ben & Jerry's store sold 12 flavors, made with an old fashioned rock salt ice cream maker and locally produced milk ...
