Ben & Jerry's cofounder says Magnum is 'destroying' the ice cream brand

One of the cofounders of Ben & Jerry’s said its owner, the Magnum Ice Cream Company, is “destroying” the brand amid a series of board changes that he called “Orwellian.”

“They said that they’re enhancing the social mission when they’re actually destroying it,” Ben Cohen told CNBC. “They said that they’re future-proofing the board of directors when they’re actually dismantling it.”

Magnum was split off from its previous parent company Unilever earlier this month and listed on stock exchanges in Amsterdam, London, and New York on Dec. 8. Since then, it has effectively kicked three members off the Ben & Jerry’s independent board by setting a nine-year term limit on terms.

Board chair Anuradha Mittal, a human rights advocate who has faced pressure to remove her by the parent company in the past, was one of those affected. Magnum said she no longer meets the criteria to be on the board after “internal investigations.” Mittal had previously said she had no intention of resigning from the ice cream company.

Cohen called it “Orwellian” and “another desperate power grab.” He added: “Initially, they were trying to get rid of the chairman of the board, by making these unfounded allegations that she’s ‘not fit to serve.’ They weren’t able to substantiate that, so now they’re saying, well, she served for too long.”

A spokesperson said the changes “aim to preserve and enhance the brand’s historical social mission and safeguard its essential integrity,” CNBC reports. “Since 2000, the Board has worked with the company to ensure Ben & Jerry’s is a vital voice for social change and to amplify movements that shape a more just and equitable world.”

Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s in 2000, and allowed the brand to keep its independent board as part of that. However, Cohen and co-founder Jerry Greenfield have increasingly spoken out against what they call attempts to “silence” the social mission it was set up with in 1978. They have also campaigned for Unilever, and now Magnum, to sell the brand and said the owners are damaging its value.

In September, the two launched a campaign called #FreeBenAndJerrys that called for Unilever and Magnum to become “an independently owned company with socially-aligned investors and once again free to honor its social mission and live by its brand values, without compromise.”

Magnum said it is “not for sale. … Since the acquisition in 2000, Unilever and now TMICC has taken Ben & Jerry’s from 4 to 46 countries, sales have increased six-fold, and we have invested nearly half a billion euros in the social mission.”

Cohen said: “They’re being short-sighted, but I also think that they just don’t understand. They don’t understand that the value of Ben & Jerry’s is tied up in the position that it has established as being in the forefront of businesses that have a concern for the overall benefit of the society, as opposed to just maximizing profits.”

He added: “Investors would be a lot better off if Magnum finally sold this asset, which they are in the process of devaluing, and instead took the money and bought some other middle-of-the-road brands, because that’s what they’re good at.”