New CEO at Ben & Jerry's Plans to Whip Up Activism, 'Whirled Peace'
August 15 2018 - 8:59AM
Dow Jones News
By Vanessa Fuhrmans
Ben & Jerry's, the ice-cream maker known for its social
advocacy as much as its chunk-filled flavors, has a new chief
executive who is promising to ramp up the brand's corporate
activism.
Matthew McCarthy, a food-business veteran of Unilever PLC, which
bought Ben & Jerry's in 2000, succeeds Jostein Solheim as
CEO.
Mr. Solheim, another longtime Unilever executive, led Ben &
Jerry's for eight years and is moving into a broader role
overseeing all of the Anglo-Dutch company's food and refreshment
businesses in North America.
Mr. McCarthy has a track record in the kind of sustainable food
production Ben & Jerry's has long promoted. At Unilever, he led
an initiative to transition Hellmann's mayonnaise to 100% cage-free
eggs and more recently launched Unilever's first organic snack
brand in the U.S., Growing Roots, which gives 50% of its profits to
U.S. urban farmers. He also led the company's 2017 acquisition of
Sir Kensington's, an upstart maker of high-end condiments.
The CEO change comes as Vermont-based Ben & Jerry's has been
diversifying into new ice-cream products and boosting its political
activism. During the 2016 election season, it launched an "Empower
Mint" ice-cream flavor in support of a voting-rights campaign. More
recently, it has advocated for the passage of Amendment 4 in a
Florida referendum in November, which would restore voting rights
to former felons.
The 49-year-old Mr. McCarthy calls "Phish Food," named after the
Vermont band Phish, his favorite Ben & Jerry's ice cream. It
and "Imagine Whirled Peace," a tribute to John Lennon's "Imagine,"
are among the Ben & Jerry's ice creams with musical or other
pop-culture references.
Mr. McCarthy said he plans to amplify the brand's tradition of
promoting environmental sustainability and advocating for social
causes while promoting its ice cream flavors. Over the next few
months, he said, the company will unveil new initiatives.
"Many people are feeling a tremendous lack of trust in [public]
institutions around them," he said. "We need organizations,
including businesses, to step forward more than ever."
Mr. McCarthy said Ben & Jerry's also has new product plans
in the works. Competition among premium ice creams has intensified
as relative newcomers such as Halo Top have won market share with
low-calorie and nondairy products. To compete, Ben & Jerry's
launched its first nondairy vegan ice-cream flavors in 2016 and,
earlier this year, introduced a line of "Moo-phoria" ice cream with
640 calories a pint or less. (Many of its traditional ice creams
top 1,000 calories a pint.)
Though Ben & Jerry's doesn't disclose sales, its share of
the U.S. ice-cream market in the 12 months ended July 14 was the
third-largest at 6.9%, slightly higher than the prior-year period,
according to market-research firm Nielsen Co. The company sells ice
cream in more than 30 countries.
Write to Vanessa Fuhrmans at vanessa.fuhrmans@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 15, 2018 08:44 ET (12:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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