5 Reasons Change Is Good – Even Changing Up Our Classic Flavors!

May 4, 2016

At Ben & Jerry’s, we love change. Without it, things would get pretty boring, and you may have noticed, we’ve never been fans of boring. As Jerry always says, “If it’s not fun, why do it”, right?

Flipping Flavors!

Well, we thought it’d be fun to play around with some of our iconic flavors. Never ones to be satisfied with an already awesome thing, we decided to flip three of our fans’ most beloved flavors this year. Because… why not?

First up? Totally Baked, a tasty flip-take on Half Baked. We took those scrumptious little gobs of cookie dough from Half Baked, baked them and swapped them into chocolate ice cream and put the brownies into the vanilla ice cream instead. Voila: a new masterpiece. Totally.

(Now die-hard fans, before you have a heart attack: don’t. Half Baked isn’t, and won’t be, going anywhere. While our classic flavors live on, these Flavor Flips will only be available in Scoop Shops, and only for a limited time. So enjoy the chocolate and vanilla ice creams with fudge brownies and chocolate chip cookies while you can.)

So while we sit here and enjoy our Totally Baked, we pondered five things we love about change. Besides the fact that it’s clearly delicious.

1. It Helped Us Grow, Even When it was Hard

We were happy handing out cones at our first Scoop Shop in Burlington, Vermont. Very happy. It was simple and fun. When we decided to package that ice cream and sell it far and wide, well, that was a pretty gigantic change, and it presented some challenges. For example, it took us six years to figure out how to get all those huge chunks in Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough to fit in the pints (they kept clogging up our ice cream machines)! But we embraced change and everything that went along with it, and now people all over the world get to experience Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough’s chunky glory.

2. It Brought Us to New … Sometimes Half Baked …Places

One of the things we’ve had a blast doing over the years is creating unexpected and sometimes totally crazy flavor combinations. We never stop thinking, imagining, tinkering… and even some established flavors have changed a bit over time, getting chunkier, swirlier, creamier. And sometimes, new flavors emerge from the old. Half Baked, for example, wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t wondered what it might be like to combine Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Change never tasted so good.

3. We Get Bored Easily

It’s no fun to keep doing the same thing over and over. There may be comfort in routine, but there’s no pizazz. When Ben and Jerry started out, they could have stuck to making the same kind of ice cream as everybody else, but where’s the fun in that? Chunks, swirls, gobs, cores; crazy flavors with awesome names; giving back to the community; supporting farmers and going Fairtrade: it’s what made, and still makes, Ben & Jerry’s unique. Changing things up can unleash your creativity and make you excited to get up every morning.

4. It Lets Us Celebrate our Fabulous Flops

We’ve had a whole lot of flavors cycle through our freezers through the years, more than we can count. And even the dearly de-pinted ones that have ended up in our Flavor Graveyard still have their loyal fans (looking at you, Oatmeal Cookie Chunk lovers). Some may call them flops, but we say they’ve all been valuable flavor experiences. After all, we wouldn’t celebrate them with a literal Flavor Graveyard (yep, it’s real, you can even come visit) if we weren’t proud of them.

5. We’re Always Surprised at the Things a Little Ice Cream Company with Amazing Fans Can Do

We love ice cream: making it, eating it, selling it. But from the very beginning, our company has been about a lot more than dessert. We want to make the world a better place. And that means changing things. When we look at all the issues we care about, from LGBT equality and racial equity to an inclusive, functioning democracy and fighting climate change, we see the power and importance of change. And the beautiful thing is, as we’ve discovered again and again and again and again, change can happen. We just have to work together and demand it.