Background
Jerry Greenfield was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States into a Jewish family; the son of a stockbroker. Throughout his childhood, J. Greenfield lived in New York City, on Long Island.
Jerry Greenfield was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States into a Jewish family; the son of a stockbroker. Throughout his childhood, J. Greenfield lived in New York City, on Long Island.
He attended Smith Street Elementary and Merrick Avenue Junior High School. Fom 1969-1973 he studied at Oberlin College.
After graduating from Oberlin College and applying twice to medical school with no luck, Greenfield moved to North Carolina with his wife-to-be, Elizabeth Skarie. In 1976, he moved in with his friend and future partner, Ben Cohen, in Saratoga Springs, New York, where they decided to pursue their dream of starting a food-related business together. They split the $5 fee for a Penn State correspondence course in ice cream making, and set up their first Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlor in a refurbished gas station in Burlington, Vermont, in the spring of 1978.
Their product was an immediate hit, and the duo began selling the ice cream out of Greenfield’s car as well. In the first five years, they also began opening Ben & Jerry’s franchises in the surrounding states. Because of their product’s popularity, during this time they had to fight (and eventually win) a battle with Pillsbury, the parent company of Häagen-Dazs, when Pillsbury tried to limit Ben & Jerry’s distribution, fearing growing competition from the young company. With their success gaining momentum, by 1986 they were building a manufacturing plant in Waterbury, going public and donating 7.5 percent of the company’s earnings to the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, a nonprofit they formed to benefit various causes.
Throughout the 1990s, Greenfield and Cohen built both their ice cream empire and their reputations as humanitarians.
Riding on the wave of success behind such unconventionally named ice cream flavors as Chocolate Therapy, Cherry Garcia and From Russia with Buzz, Ben & Jerry’s was reaching annual sales of nearly $250 million by the turn of the century.
In April 2000, Greenfield and Cohen sold the company to Unilever for over $325 million. The sale agreement had a provision through which Greenfield and Cohen could maintain Ben & Jerry’s existing philanthropic apparatus and brand integrity, an unusual item to be included in a deal of this magnitude. Beyond his continuing work with Ben & Jerry’s, Greenfield is involved with the Institute for Sustainable Communities (with a seat on the board), Businesses for Social Responsibility and True Majority.
(Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book tells fan...)
1987(Two entrepreneurs whose ice cream shop started in an aban...)
1997
J. Greenfield is married to Elizabeth Skarie, 1987 and has a son.
