Did Ben & Jerry’s change Unilever?

A fascinating story has appeared on the BBC News website featuring Jerry (of Ben & Jerry’s) as he explains the extent to which, after being taken over by Unliever in 2000, they have been able to bring their values to the vast conglomerate.

As shown on the who owns who chart, Unilever is a vast congolmerate that owns scores of famous brands. Since 2000, Ben & Jerry’s has been one of them.

Ben & Jerry’s mission statement enshrines the need to make progress against financial, product development and ethical targets in equal measure and many would have worried that this would have been lost once they became part of Unilever. Not so, says Jerry - in fact, the hippy ice cream firm has been able to influence Unilever as it, like other corporates, has sought to meet its wider corporate social responsibility.

From listening to Jerry, it seems that Ben still holds sway in his ‘uncompromising’ way within the business, whilst the business has received a lot of support from its parent company. Ben & Jerry’s still helps new entrepreneurs get off the ground and this seems to be as important to the founders as their passion for ice cream.

This seems a useful case study to show that a takeover does not always mean that the acquiring company forces its values and culture on to the takeover target. Indeed, the small company can even influence the larger one - as Jerry playfully puts it ‘like a flea on the body of this big thing’.

This is in complete contrast with Kraft’s acquisition of Cadbury which saw managers leave in droves, unable to fit into Kraft’s bureaucratic style.

As well as the M&A theme, there are interesting points here for CSR, culture and succession planning - all topics that have come up at least once before in the essay questions in BUSS4.