The new CEO of Ben & Jerry s, Jostein Solheim, has promised to keep the company rooted in Vermont, citing the Vermont brand as an important part of marketing the product. He also pointed to the company s history, its social and environmental causes, the Vermont plants proximity to raw materials and the skills of the workers in those plants as reasons to stay put.
Solheim took the helm at Ben & Jerry s in March after former CEO Walt Freese stepped down from the position. He has been with Ben & Jerry s corporate owner Unilever for 19 years, spending 14 of those in Unilever s ice cream division, which also includes Breyers, Klondike, and Popsicle.
Ben & Jerry s currently employs between 500 and 600 people in the state. Production plants in St. Albans and Waterbury produce almost 75 percent of the company s ice cream, with less than 10 percent coming out of a plant in Nevada, and the rest being produced in the Netherlands for distribution throughout Europe. Around two-thirds of Ben & Jerry s product is sold in the U.S.
(Source: The Burlington Free Press)
New Ben & Jerry’s CEO to keep company rooted in Vermont
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