Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield, whose name helped shape the popular ice cream brand, has quit the company, his partner Ben Cohen has said, deepening the rift with parent Unilever. In an open letter addressing the Ben & Jerry community that was shared by Cohen on social media platform X, Greenfield said that the Vermont-based company has lost its independence since UK parent Unilever curtailed its social activism. Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have clashed since 2021, when the ice cream maker said it would stop sales in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. I’m sharing his words as he resigns from Ben & Jerry’s. "That independence existed in no small part because of the unique merger agreement Ben and I negotiated with Unilever," he wrote in the letter.