Ben & Jerry's has a charitable foundation? Who knew?
Well, they do, and apparently they have been giving money to pro-"Palestinian" organizations, or at least that's what parent company Unilever thinks, and the ice cream brand founded by old hippies and marketed to old hippies has been resisting (hah) allowing their parent company to audit their records.
So Unilever is yanking their funding.
Unilever is reportedly cutting off millions of dollars in funding to the Ben & Jerry’s charitable foundation after it refused to provide audit documents about donations to pro-Palestinian groups, escalating an internal dispute between a corporate parent and its left-leaning subsidiary.
Peter ter Kulve, head of Unilever’s ice cream division, informed Ben & Jerry’s executives via email that the foundation’s trustees “have continued to resist basic oversight” and are not cooperating with requests from corporate auditors, according to the news site Semafor.
“It represents a marked departure from the norms of charitable organizations, for whom transparency is typically a bedrock operating principle,” ter Kulve wrote in the email, which was obtained by Semafor.
Yeah, that's what happens when you defy your bosses. Unilever owns Ben & Jerry's and has since 2000. This isn't a new thing or a new expectation. Higher-level corporations audit corporate subsidiaries all the time, and not just for charitable spending; in my previous career, I conducted many such audits myself, on compliance rather than finances. This is hardly an unusual expectation.
Especially not when the parent company is thinking of, shall we say, divesting.
The audit process is part of Unilever’s ongoing effort to spin off its ice cream business, which includes the famously left-leaning Vermont-based brand.
The Ben & Jerry’s foundation distributed more than $5 million of Unilever’s funds in 2022, mostly to progressive organizations.
The foundation has operated under Unilever’s ownership since the multinational acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000.
The dust-up has been going on, it seems, since at least 2021, when Ben & Jerry's piously announced they would no longer sell ice cream in Israel, whereupon Unilever sold the license in Israel so another company could make Ben & Jerry's and sell it in the Jewish nation. Although I have to say, after the initial snubbing, it would not be at all surprising if Israeli ice cream fans told the new Ben & Jerry's where to head in.
Now, Unilever looks a lot like they are attempting to dump a troublesome subsidiary, and this audit is a part of that process.
See Also: Strange Bedfellows: Ben & Jerry's Co-Founder Supporting the DOGE
To be fair, I have no idea what, if any, stance Unilever takes on the whole issue of Israel, its actions, and the surrounding countries, nor on the people who claim to be Palestinian. And you know what? In this case, it really doesn't matter. That's not the issue. The issue is that Ben & Jerry's is refusing to cooperate with corporate auditors. Such a refusal usually ends up with a bunch of people getting fired, and it would not be surprising to see that happen here.
What's really remarkable is that an ice cream company founded by a couple of self-righteous hippies, 25 years after its sale, still acts like it's run by a couple of self-righteous hippies. Well, they fooled around, and now, they're finding out.
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