Ben & Jerry's Sales Grow 9.2% in Q2 2026 Amidst First Year of Ownership Conflict Under Magnum

One year ago this Thursday, on 17 September 2025, Jerry Greenfield resigned from Ben & Jerry's after 47 years. His letter, posted on X by co-founder Ben Cohen, said the brand had been "silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power" and that he could not stay "in good conscience". Behind the letter sits the April 2000 agreement, in which Unilever paid $326m and signed up to an independent board with the social mission in its charter. That arrangement is now a federal case: in August a New York judge dismissed seven of the board's ten claims against the owner, and three continue. In July the Ben & Jerry's Foundation, which has moved $60m to grassroots groups over 40 years, said it will close at the end of 2026 after its funding was cut and staff were ordered out of their South Burlington office, taking around $600,000 a year of Vermont grants with it, per VTDigger. A Magnum spokesperson told the same outlet the shutdown is "entirely down to the Trustees and their decision to ignore audit findings". Ownership passed to The Magnum Ice Cream Company when Unilever's ice cream division listed in Amsterdam on 8 December 2025. On listing day, chief executive Peter ter Kulve told the Financial Times the founders' dedication "has been enormous, but at some point you have to let it go", and told the Dutch paper FD the campaign was "just noise". Ben Cohen launched the Free Ben & Jerry's campaign on 9 September 2025 outside Magnum's Capital Markets Day in London, and on 7 April 2026 delivered 100,000 petition signatures to Magnum's Amsterdam headquarters, where no one would accept them. He told Fortune in August: "They ain't got no soul. The only mission these guys have is profit." Through all of it, the ice cream kept selling. Magnum's own first-half report shows Ben & Jerry's grew 9.2% in the second quarter against 4.7% for the group across the half, with Free Cone Day alone serving more than a million scoops, a performance ter Kulve's own statement framed as helping the group "outperform the growing global ice cream category". The 2000 merger clause, which established the independent board and enshrined the social mission, was for 26 years seen as a unique aspect of the deal. The first year of open conflict has transformed it into a live test case for whether a social mission can survive its acquirer, with commercial performance suggesting its enduring appeal despite legal and operational challenges.