Unilever has decided to get out of the ice cream business, 24 years after it bought Ben & Jerry's. The British company said Tuesday that it is spinning off its ice cream brands as part of a cost savings plan that will also involve cutting around 7,500 jobs, the BBC reports. The company, which makes numerous household and personal care products, including Dove soaps and Vaseline, said it aims to do "fewer things better." It said ice cream businesses have a "different operating model" than other products, for reasons including the frozen goods supply chain, and "as a result, the board has decided that the separation of ice cream best serves the future growth of both ice cream and Unilever."
Unilever's other ice cream brands include Magnum and Cornetto. Its relationship with Ben & Jerry's has at times been a "rocky road" because the Vermont-based company operated as an independent subsidiary that continued to support progressive causes, CBS News reports. In 2022, Ben & Jerry's sued Unilever to block the sale of its ice cream in occupied Palestinian territories.
Unilever chairman Ian Meakins said the split would create a "world-leading ice cream business, with strong growth prospects and an exciting future as a standalone business." Bloomberg columnist Andrea Felsted says the decision to ditch ice cream and focus on higher-growth businesses is "the right thing to do" for Unilever's bottom line. She says the company should consider jettisoning other food brands, "including Hellmann's mayonnaise and Knorr stock cubes, which look increasingly at odds with its beauty and personal care focus." (More Unilever stories.)
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