Ben of Ben & Jerry's Gets Lesson

Thursday, November 30th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) â€” Ex-hippie ice cream maker Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's says he has been getting some tough lessons in big business since his company sold out to the conglomerate Unilever.

Now, Cohen said Thursday, he worries that the food giant's promises of continued social activism may be melting away like a pint of Cherry Garcia left out in the sun.

``Ben & Jerry's will become just another brand like any other soulless, heartless, spiritless brand out there â€” that's my concern,'' Cohen said in an interview.

Under pressure from shareholders, Cohen and partner Jerry Greenfield agreed in April to sell their baby, a Vermont ice cream maker with an image steeped in social activism and tie-dyed idealism, to Unilever, a British-Dutch food conglomerate. After the sale, Cohen and Greenfield remained as company employees and members of a separate Ben & Jerry's board.

The buyout came amid widely publicized assurances that Ben & Jerry's social mission would not be lost â€” assurances that a Unilever spokesman repeated Thursday.

``In its first 20 years, Ben & Jerry's opened only seven scoop shops with nonprofit partners,'' Stephen Milton said. ``We're going to open five next year.''

But Cohen said he is worried. His worries mounted last week when Unilever picked Yves Couette, a longtime executive from its ranks, rather than the Ben & Jerry's veteran favored by Cohen and Greenfield, as the new chief executive of the ice cream maker.

``The only way the social mission of Ben & Jerry's and the heart and soul of the company will be maintained is to have a CEO running the company who has a deep understanding of our values-led social business philosophy, who had experience with the company and with how that worked in practice,'' Cohen said.

Through an assistant, Greenfield declined a request for an interview.

Unilever's Milton countered that Couette, a Frenchman with experience working in the United States, Mexico and Indonesia, has the needed experience.

A list of the company's social objectives for 2001 includes helping to build playgrounds and launching a new flavor tied to that effort; lobbying to extend the life of the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact, which provides more income for farmers; and developing more environmentally friendly packaging.

But Cohen said he is dissatisfied that the ``social audit'' promised of Unilever's operations had not been completed yet.

And he said he is upset that Unilever would not allow a $5 million fund set up to help new businesses with a social agenda get on their feet to carry the Ben & Jerry's name.

``Now it's been made clear to me that Unilever doesn't want there to be any connection between Unilever and this fund,'' he said.

Milton replied that Unilever is worried about protecting the Ben & Jerry's brand name. He said the fund could be called ``Ben's Venture Capital Fund,'' but not ``Ben & Jerry's Venture Capital Fund.''

Cohen also said he had learned after the sale that what he had understood to be legally binding agreements for Unilever to continue pursuing Ben & Jerry's social agenda had turned out not to be legally binding â€” another complaint disputed by Milton.

``We understand that Ben's very concerned,'' Milton said. ``He's a founder of the company. He has a huge emotional stake in the company. Our view is, judge us by our actions.''