Voicemail threat to Ben & Jerry’s gets state police response
January 14, 2021 | By Lisa ScagliottiState police responded to Ben & Jerry’s Waterbury ice cream factory last weekend after a threatening voicemail left at its scoop shop worried staff.
Ben & Jerry's Waterbury plant is a manufacturing facility and retail scoop shop and visitor center. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Vermont State Police spokesman Adam Silverman said troopers received a report from the retail operation at the factory about a phone message left on Saturday morning, Jan. 10.
“The company reported a threatening voicemail that appeared to originate from out of state, and a [state] trooper was present at shift change,” Silverman said.
An email to scoop shop staff late Saturday afternoon said a “concerning voicemail” was left that morning. “Police were notified and security has been hired to be onsite for the coming days,” the message stated. The shop closed early that day until new security could be in place.
When asked about the voicemail, Ben & Jerry’s corporate communications director Sean Greenwood would not share details regarding the nature of the message. In an email exchange with Waterbury Roundabout, he confirmed the call and said it was not unusual for a company that takes its social responsibility role seriously.
“It is not uncommon for us – as an aspiring activist brand that takes a stance on issues such as gay marriage, global warming, and racial justice – to receive phone, email and messaging responses from those who don’t agree with Ben & Jerry’s progressive approach. Occasionally, when necessary, we’ll reach out to local authorities out of precaution.”
Greenwood said the scoop shop resumed normal operations on Sunday. Employees were told to be vigilant and if they “see something, say something.”
Silverman with the state police said that should anyone have more information about the incident, they should call the Middlesex state police barracks at 802-229-9191. Tips also may be sent anonymously through the website vtips.info.
Activism is a lightning rod
Greenwood didn’t share details of the message, nor would he comment on whether the incident referenced the violence in Washington, D.C. last week at the U.S. Capitol.
However, Greenwood did point to the company’s activism as a familiar target for criticism from the public. The company has been characteristically active recently on several fronts including issuing swift and strong comments following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
On Jan. 7, the company posted its response to the deadly attack in Washington D.C. on social media: “Yesterday was not a protest – it was a riot to uphold white supremacy. It was allowed to happen. The mostly white insurrectionists roamed freely and without consequence through the heart of our democracy. The only explanation is that this was allowed to happen because they were white – not Black, Brown or Indigenous people,” the post states.
It goes on to call those who stormed the Capitol “the ultimate embodiment of white privilege.”
Referring to “two Americas,” it compares and contrasts the record turnout in the Jan. 5 U.S. Senate runoff election in Georgia that elected the state’s first Black and Jewish senators with “a mostly white mob, encouraged by the president” that the next day invaded the Capitol in support of overturning the results of the presidential election. One capitol police officer was killed in the melee and several others died after medical emergencies during the siege, according to press reports.
“It was a failed coup – our democracy in peril,” the post says, concluding with: “Both of these Americas are us. How we respond to the events of yesterday will determine which America we will be. Resign, impeach, 25th Amendment... not one more day.”
The same message was posted to the company’s blog on Monday.
Tackling charged issues
The message was in keeping with the ice cream company’s long history of social and political activism dating back to its founding in 1978 by Vermont ice cream entrepreneurs Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. has long been known for its progressive corporate policies and political stances on an array of issues such as climate change, same-sex marriage, refugees, workers rights, racism and economic justice.
And although Cohen and Greenfield are no longer calling the shots at the company, the trademark corporate agenda has essentially continued since its acquisition by the multinational conglomerate Unilever in 2000. The Ben & Jerry’s charitable foundation still supports organizations that work for progressive causes and the company regularly engages the public using social media and its corporate newsletter to promote both its products and its corporate values.
Ben & Jerry's newest flavor, Change the Whirled," is a project with Colin Kaepernick to support racial justice through a youth camp program. Courtesy photo.
In 2020 for example, those efforts focused on anti-racism and get-out-the-vote messaging that tracked with national demonstrations opposing police brutality against people of color and the presidential election campaign.
On a related front, in December the company released a non-dairy frozen dessert called “Colin Kaepernick’s Change the Whirled.” The pints bear a tie-dye color scheme and feature the likeness of the former San Francisco 49ers activist football quarterback with a raised fist and wearing a t-shirt with the message “I know my rights.” With a nod to Kaepernick who is vegan, it’s made using sunflower butter with caramel, fudge chips, and swirls of graham crackers and chocolate cookies.
Kaepernick’s proceeds from the joint venture will support Know Your Rights Camp, a nonprofit he founded in Oakland, Calif., in 2016 to support young leaders in Black and brown communities through education and self-empowerment.
As a prominent advocate of anti-racism and social justice, Kaepernick has been a polarizing figure in the national outcry against police brutality, attracting both criticism and acclaim for his now-famous choice in 2016 to take a knee during the national anthem as a form of peaceful protest.
Responses to the latest flavor-with-a-cause on the company blog and social media posts contain mostly comments of support mixed with some sharp rebukes as recently as a new post today.
Any reaction from disgruntled consumers, however, isn’t deterring the company from using its platforms to spread messages for social justice.
Two days after it posted about the violence in Washington D.C. – the very day the voicemail was left at the Waterbury scoop shop – Ben & Jerry’s Facebook page posted a call to join the American Civil Liberties Union in opposing the executions of federal prisoners on death row: “There were more federal executions in 2020 than there were in any year since 1896. And now the Trump administration is rushing to carry out more before Inauguration Day. Join us and the ACLU in demanding an end to federal executions!”