The Report of Ben&Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream Company - Part III

How Did the Company Grow?

After the shop was opened, Ben and Jerry promoted a buy one get one free cone offer. With that way, there was a long line each day in front of the shop. Ben and Jerry wanted to be a host for a free film festival because they wanted to connect with the community. They were getting well-known in Vermont. 

On the first anniversary of the shop, they wanted to celebrate it, and they gave free ice cream to all consumers. “They truly believed that the joy was in the journey, and were determined to seize upon every opportunity to have fun that came their way. Ben and Jerry came to describe their business as being “funky,” which to them meant honest, not frills, handmade, and homemade.” (Lager, 1994, p. 36) Beside those reasons, there were two other important reasons why the company grew quickly and became popular. The first reason was creative flavors. Jerry was creating new flavors, so they did not need to hire someone to invent new flavors. Giving special names, such as New York Super Fudge Chunk, Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, Rainforest Crunch and Economic Crunch to each flavor attracted consumers, and the sales by 1987 increased to $32 million (Richards, n.d. retrieved 09/23/2009). According to Rob Michalak, Ben & Jerry’s director of social mission and public elation, consumers made a connection between the flavors and their stories. Thereby, the emotional relationship appeared between the flavors and the consumers (Seireeni, 2008). The second reason was social and environmental responsibilities. Ben & Jerry’s manager of natural resources, Andrea Asch, believes that consumers value the social and environmental mission. The company’s mission includes several aims, (Richards, n.d. retrieved 09/23/2009) such as:

• Recycled materials were used to make an original scoop shop
• Created a Green Team, to educate the employees of the company about environment
• Using solar panels on the company’s buses