Ben & Jerry's

“No commercial ice creams. We're packaging ice cream like that, and as we discovered, the reason why they weren't doing it is because the machinery The commercial ice cream machinery was not designed to be able to handle large chunks. So all you would get would…”

“Well, Pillsbury had bought Haagen-Dazs, so they owned them, and they went to, Independent ice cream distributors who were distributing all sorts of different brands of ice creams, and, ah, you know, told them that if those distributors continued to deliver Ben…”

“Our goal when we opened was to make 20,000 dollars a year a piece.”

“He was an old guy named Manny, and, ah, he said, well, just tell him you can't pay your loan right now, that you can pay it, you know, when the weather turns. You know, they'll, they'll, they'll like, just let you pay interest. And we went to the bank, and we …”

“Five dollars. We split one between the two of us.”

“I think if we had started in New York, we never would have gained the local following that we gained in Vermont. In Vermont, it would, we could be A bigger fish in a smaller pond.”

“There was going to continue to be an independent board in the new entity that oversaw the social mission, and I think Ben and I could have Remained on that board, and we both chose not to.”

“One of the reasons we started packaging our ice cream was because we weren't so good at running a shop, and one of the things we thought about was, well, maybe we can't control how much ice cream we're putting on a cone, but you certainly can control how much …”

“First winter when Ben and I came up with the idea of free cone day, that if we were still in business after a year, we would celebrate and treat all our customers by giving out free ice cream because we thought it was so unlikely that we would still be in busi…”

“So I was arguing for having a larger number of smaller chunks that were well distributed throughout the ice cream, and you know, Ben was saying, No, what people want, and this is what Ben wanted, of course, but what people want is a really big chunk, and they …”

“We sent away for 30 SBA pamphlets that cost between 15 cents and three dollars per on all the different aspects of Running a business.”

“For every degree below zero Celsius which is 32 degrees Fahrenheit you got a penny off the price of your cone, which was significant at the time because a cone cost 52 cents.”

“You know, if Unilever bought a brand and bought the goodwill that goes along with that brand and bought the reputation that goes along with that brand, they need to continue those activities in order to keep that brand strong.”

“Well, it was a public company which meant that anybody could own shares, and Unilever ended up offering so much money that the board of the company couldn't find an alternative for the shareholders that that they thought was acceptable.”

“Let's do something for a couple of years, and then... After we do that, let's do something else. We talked about becoming cross-country truck drivers after we did this ice cream shop.”

“Our reaction to that was to sell the business, and we actually put it up for sale. This was early on. This was in the eighties.”

“In every business except for ice cream, the portions are controlled in the back. Out of sight of the customer, and when you're scooping ice cream, you're supposed to control the portion inside of the customer, and if the scoop is too big, you're supposed to ta…”

“The company came out in support of Occupy Wall Street a few years ago, which, you know, is amazing because that, that was essentially an anti-corporate movement.”

“That, that's how they learned how to make ice cream. They did it By a correspondence.”

“So I was arguing for having a larger number of smaller chunks that were well distributed throughout the ice cream. And, you know, Ben was saying, no, what people want, and this is what Ben wanted, of course, but what people want is a really big chunk, and they…”

“We sent away for 30 SBA pamphlets that cost between 15 cents a And three dollars per on all the different aspects of running a business.”

“Well, but not only that, so it was the cover story of Time Magazine.”

“Within the last year, the company came out with a statement in support of Black Lives Matter.”

“Five dollars. We split one between the two of us.”

“For every degree below zero Celsius which is 32 degrees Fahrenheit you got a penny off the price of your cone, which was significant at the time because a cone cost 52 cents.”

“Our reaction to that was to sell the business, and we actually put it up for sale. This was early on. This was in the eighties.”

“We got a postcard that said, we're both deadheads, and we're also Ben and Jerry's fans, and we think you ought to come out with a flavor called Cherry Garcia, because it would be a real hoot for the fans, and dead paraphernalia always sells.”

“We thought about picking a food That was becoming popular in big cities, but had not yet been brought to a college town. And at that time, the foods we thought about were bagels and homemade ice cream. So we went to a used restaurant supply store to price out …”

“Our goal when we opened was to make 20,000 dollars a year apiece.”

“The company came out in support of Occupy Wall Street a few years ago, which, you know, is amazing because that was essentially an anti-corporate movement.”

“You know, the first two flavors that we did that were not your normal ones were Oreo Mint and Heath Bar Crunch.”

“But it wasn't always a classic flavor, because in fact, it was invented by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in that tiny little shop in Burlington in the 19 eighties.”

“In every business except for ice cream, the portions are controlled in the back. Out of sight of the customer. And when you're scooping ice cream, you're supposed to control the portion inside of the customer, and if the scoop is too big, you're supposed to ta…”

“When we first wrote out and figured out our projections for how much ice cream we would sell and how much it would cost, the projections told us that We weren't going to sell enough ice cream to stay in business. So we just changed the projections.”

“That, that, that's our project with the Greyston Bakery and deliberately choosing to use this ingredient supplier because this particular ingredient supplier was driven by a social mission of providing employment opportunities for formerly unemployable people.”

“Ben and I pretty much copied that business plan, except every place where it said slice of pizza, we crossed it out and we wrote an ice cream cone.”

“Pillsbury had bought Haagen-Dazs, so they owned them, and they went to independent ice cream distributors, who were distributing all sorts of different brands of ice creams, and you know, told them that if those distributors continued to deliver Ben & Jerry's,…”

“And we went to the bank, and we said that, and they said, sure, no problem. Just pay interest, and, you know, we'll extend the loan, and that got us through.”

“One of the reasons we started packaging our ice cream was because we weren't so good at running a shop, and one of the things we thought about was, well, maybe we can't control how much ice cream we're putting on a cone, but you certainly can control how much …”

“It was actually during that first winter when Ben and I came up with the idea of Free Cone Day, that if we were still in business after a year, we would celebrate and treat all our customers by giving out free ice cream, because we thought it was so unlikely t…”

“Be really disciplined on who the, what the brand is, right? If you look at Ben and Jerry's and the names of their products and the humor and the way they write, they went all in on that liquid death, all in on their edge. It's just so, I know who they are.”