What can co-op retailers learn from an ice cream company? Delegates at the Co-op Retail Conference heard from Ben & Jerry’s Jessie Macneil-Brown about how the organisation turns its purpose into practice.
“Our business was built by two hippies – Ben & Jerry, the fat kids at the back of the class, who liked ice cream, and they just wanted to start a business together,” she said.
“Ben nearly left the whole business because he didn’t want to become a corporate overlord, and he went to one of his mentors and said, ‘That’s it. I’m selling up. I’m not one of these guys’. And his mentor said to him, ‘Well, do it differently. Why do you have to do it like everybody else?’ And that’s where the Ben & Jerry’s ethos came from – that everyone who touches our business needs to have a positive impact.”
Ben & Jerry’s has a three-party mission: “To make the best ice cream in the world. To stay profitable (‘the more profitable we are, the more we can reinvest that money back into communities’) And to be a force for good.“
“This linked prosperity model is embedded into the operations and management of the business,” said Macneil-Brown. “And we like to say that we’re proof you can be a purpose-led business that is profitable, that is successful and that everybody loves.”
Related: Future Economy Alliance poll finds public wants purpose-led business
She was speaking with Becky Willan from strategic consultancy Given (part of the Anthesis Group), who highlighted that 91% of UK employees who work for big companies say that purpose is important, even in today’s economic context.
“The real problem we’re seeing is a gap opening up between what corporates are saying and the experience that colleagues within those businesses actually have,” said Willan. “Over 60% of UK employees said that the company’s purpose statements just didn’t match the reality of their experience. That was a 10-point increase from the year before.”
Macneil-Brown added that people we speak to who know about Ben & Jerry’s social mission are more likely to buy the product and spend more. “They like it when we speak out,” she said. “For example, at the start of last year, we had a team from the US go out to the people’s march in Washington. And we put some content on TikTok, as any good brand does. Within two weeks, we gained 2 million followers.”
The company was sold in 2000 to Unilever but operates as an independent subsidiary with an independent board comprising business leaders, campaigners and people from the NGO sector. “This board challenges us, quite rightly, on everything from where we’re sourcing our ingredients and how we’re paying people, to the ongoing quality of the flavours,” she adds.
Last year, Ben & Jerry’s launched an exclusive flavour developed with the Co-op Group called Sweet Mango Memories, co-created with refugee entrepreneurs.
“In 2017, our social mission focus for Europe focused on refugees,” added Macneil-Brown. “We launched a refugee entrepreneurship programme in the UK that has now extended to France and the Netherlands. We brought entrepreneurs in to meet our flavour gurus and the rest of the team at Ben & Jerry’s, who developed the flavour, and one of the refugee entrepreneurs from the Netherlands helped us design the pint and the artwork.”
Proceeds from sales support refugees.
Ben & Jerry’s had an exclusivity period of the first year with the Co-op Group. “Then our team took this to other supermarkets and retailers in the UK, and we overwhelmingly heard ‘we’re not having anything that says refugee on our shelves’.”
Macneil-Brown acknowledged that this work is hard. “I don’t want to sugarcoat this. Not everyone wants to work with us. We’ve got to find partners who do want to work with us, then we need to find where we can have some impact and can add value to the work that they’re doing.”
Work with refugees is a particularly challenging, she added, and can be dangerous. “People’s safety is always the first thing on our mind.”
She added: “We want people to know that you can do good and have fun at the same time. But unfortunately, some horrible things are happening, and people aren’t saying anything about it – businesses in particular. We do speak up, and that’s where Ben & Jerry’s gets this reputation of ‘oh, you’re always being super provocative’.
“But how provocative is it to say that people deserve safety? How have we gotten to this world where that is a provocative thing to say?
“So we try to bring the fun, and this comes back to Ben and Jerry, the people. Ben was the one saying, ‘We need to have a positive impact on the world’, and Jerry was the one said, ‘Well, if it ain’t fun, why do it?’ And those are the two big slogans that we try to live by at Ben & Jerry’s every day.”
Find all our coverage of the 2026 Co-op Retail Conference here.
