Why these companies keep selling themselves to giant corporate overlords I'll never understand.
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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Because somebody on the top found an opportunity to make money on it. That's how the corpo world works
If you wanted to retain control, you should never have sold it to Unilever.
What did you think would happen when you sold out!?
One supposes they wanted to get the fat stacks but maintain control via PR.
Unfortunately for them, PR has a dollar value to corporations, and once the cost of PR exceeds its value, it is no longer an effective barrier to action.
Will be interesting to see if it works out for them like it did for Target. There's a growing list of companies that progressive Americans will no longer support. B&J could easily join that list.
Thinking it would go any other way is extreme naïveté. They're not. They might have 'wanted' to have their ice cream and eat it too, but they wanted the money more. 🤷♂️
I don't remember which company it is, but a CEO with socially progressive views was appointed by shareholders. He believes that you can be ethical and still run a multibillion company. After a year, he was replaced. It wasn't explicitly mentioned but we know why he was replaced.
Unless you own the company yourself, I think you could be ethical. But more cut throat rivals would undermine you, leaving you with no choice but to either let your company be bought because you simply cannot compete, or you could keep up with the Joneses and follow along with cut throat tactics to remain competitive.
The third option though is if you are comfortable enough with what you are earning that you don't feel the need to compete and expand. This is what many family-owned Japanese businesses do. Those businesses have been passed down from generation to generation stretching back hundreds of years. A lot of said businesses explain they do not want to expand because it is risky and are happy enough with their enterprise.
and has repeatedly warned personnel not to defy its efforts to “silence the social mission.”
I can't imagine ever saying anything like that. I often think bad people think they're the good guys in their own eyes but...damn...that's just plain evil.
I often think there should be one boardmember whose entire reason for being there is to say "hey that sounds like something a supervillain would do/say" when shit like this gets proposed.
They employ people for that very reason. It’s called Public Relations. When they hear something that sounds villainous, their job is to sanitize the message before it’s sent out to the public.
But, that’s only during a neoliberal zeitgeist where companies implement half-assed programs like DEI, pink and rainbow washing advertising, etc. because it’s the mainstream. As soon as Trump took office, they shifted their strategy, which includes their public relations. They ditched the flowery language and diversity campaigns because they don’t feel they need to appeal to the consumer anymore. We are a captive consumer now.
Except for Target. They FAFO.
At a certain point you notice that large swathes of people keep eventually deciding to use skulls as political symbols. And epistemology of pain has defined the modern right wing since it was called the alt right. They know what they intend, they just believe that the evil can be scrubbed by history.
Unilever plans to spin off Ben & Jerry's, Breyers, Magnum and other ice cream brands later this year.
What's even the point of getting rid of their CEO then?
Sometimes pettiness is all they need. When THQ went bankrupt, Ubisoft bought their studio that hired Patrice Désilets (creator of assassin's Creed) just so they could shut down his new project and fire him again.
SR3 still has the best overall combination of character customization, stat advancement and urban open world. Its not even close to the best at any single one of them but its still the only game that actually pulls off all 3 well. What happened to that series post bankruptcy is a tragedy.
Look it's amazing the company last this long. Just stop buying it and got to your local gelato place after checking Facebook to make sure you're not supporting a neo Nazi.
One capitalism rock please.
Align with the devil...
B&J's enshitified a while ago. There are better ice creams.
Name names. I want the lowdown on underappreciated ice cream.
Tillamook. Farmer owned Co-op. Great ice cream, can find at any grocery store.
My local Kroger-subsidiary markets carry Tillamook. It's very good stuff.
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Fighting the good fight elbow deep in a tub of off brand ice cream.
I'M DOING MY PART!
Not OP. But I’ve had good luck trying ice creams from local dairy’s. Not sure where you’re located.
Great point.
Salt & Straw, Palo Alto comes to mind in California (SF Bay)
Wow incredible, vegan or moo
Edit:
Jude's, especially their plant based ones.
Was going to suggest Talenti, but just looked it up and they are also Unilever. It comes in a cool jar though..
Ruby Jewel does still seem to be owned by the lady that started the company after winning a food competition twenty years ago. And it’s available nation wide (US) as of three years ago.
Also Strauss Organic is amazing, but I don’t know how far they are distributed, they are local to me. Edit: Their ice cream is available across the US.
Ok, this is a dangerous idea. Make your own.
You get an ice cream maker/mixer that turns a frozen bowl.
In a separate bowl mix 1 quart of light cream, 1 can of condensed milk, 1/2 cup of sugar as the base (add vanilla for vanilla flavor, melt some real chocolate with enough cream that it's liquid for chocolate, etc, play with it, nothing solid yet)
Pour half into your mixer, let it go for 28mins, add any solids you want (if you're planning to add a lot, you could pour less base in). 2 more min, scope it out into some containers. Repeat for the rest of the base, you can do different flavors/mix ins if you want).
My bowls are good for 2 batches before they don't freeze enough. If you need more, you can get and freeze more bowls, or just make batches up to like every other day or so, as the bowls need to freeze.
This is going to be very expensive and time consuming for a lot of people.
Same goes with brewing your own beer or making your own wine. It can’t compete with the cost at scale.
Also, not everyone has time for stuff like this. Making your own pickles/ice cream/beef jerky/beer/whatever is a luxury. So is having a vegetable garden or whatever other hipster idea people suggest in this vein. Like, I do a lot of those things, because I have a house (because space is often a requirement) and I work from home so I have time. But most people aren't that fortunate and what free time they have should be spent on doing things they find fun.
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They have some of the best vegan icecreams. I wish there were some good alternatives that I can get here.
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It would be nice to understand what these social policies are otherwise this means nothing.
if you read the article
It said Unilever blocked it in February from honoring Black History Month, and more recently from supporting the release from detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a U.S. legal permanent resident active in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University and who the Trump administration wants to deport.
Well you're supposed to just know that it means diversity, anti-war, societal health...anything that isn't pushing towards total wealth concentration and power of the elite just be eliminated. It's literally the machine from fern gully
If they're against wealth consolidation, why did they willingly come under a larger corporation? Hypocrites and sellouts.
Tale as old as time. Money, lots of money, and promises about people not being affected, the company not changing, etc. 99% of the time it's bs.
The one I know is their pro-Palestinian position. They tried to divest from Israeli settlements and in return Unilever created another subsidiary to handle sales in Israel IIRC.
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