Template:Short description Template:BLP sources Template:Infobox person Jerry Greenfield (born March 14, 1951) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and activist. He is a co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings, Inc.

Greenfield grew up on Long Island. He attended Oberlin College, where he was a National Merit Scholar and followed a pre-med curriculum before graduating in 1973.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He applied unsuccessfully for medical school before deciding to go into business with Ben Cohen, a childhood friend.<ref name=":0" /> After taking a course in ice-cream making from Penn State, Greenfield and Cohen opened their first ice cream store in downtown Burlington, Vermont.<ref name=":0" /> The company, which was sold to British-Dutch corporation Unilever in 2000, has since opened almost 200 franchised shops and reports earnings of $237 million annually.<ref name="Omnibus Lecture Series">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early lifeEdit

Jerry Greenfield grew up on Long Island, to a family of Jewish roots.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He attended Merrick Avenue Junior High School, where he met Ben Cohen in 1963.<ref name="Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield" /> Greenfield and Cohen both attended Calhoun High School and remained friends until they both graduated and left Long Island to attend college.<ref name="Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="AndrewG">Template:Cite news</ref>

Greenfield chose to pursue a pre-med curriculum at Oberlin College,<ref name=":0" /> where he began working as an ice cream scooper in the school's cafeteria.<ref name="Omnibus Lecture Series" />

After graduating in 1973, Greenfield failed to get into medical school.<ref name=":0" /> At this point, Greenfield decided to move back to New York where he shared an apartment with Cohen and worked as a lab technician.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1974, Greenfield was again rejected from medical school and decided to move to North Carolina with his future wife, Elizabeth Skarie, and continued to work as a lab technician.<ref name="Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield"/>

Greenfield lived with Cohen in Saratoga Springs, New York during the summer of 1977.<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> After initially considering opening a bagel shop, they chose to open an ice cream store.<ref name=":0" /> They took a five-dollar correspondence course in ice-cream making and opened their first store in a former gas station in Burlington, Vermont.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Ben & Jerry's opened in the summer of 1978.<ref name="Omnibus Lecture Series"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

During the 1980s, Greenfield left the business to support Elizabeth in Arizona as she pursued a Ph.D. in psychology.Template:Citation needed The couple returned to Vermont in 1985, when Greenfield assumed the position of Director of Mobile Promotions.Template:Citation needed

Ben & Jerry'sEdit

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Greenfield and Cohen began looking for a proper location for their ice cream parlor in 1977. The criteria that they set down were that the location should be a college town, since they assumed college students ate a lot of ice cream, and that it should be warm. After comparing information from almanacs and a guide to American colleges, the pair realized that every warm college town already had an ice cream shop and settled on Burlington, Vermont in 1978, as the location for their shop.Template:Citation needed

After choosing their town, the two businessmen needed to find a suitable building. They decided on an old gas station and began looking for financing. With a combined savings totaling around $8,000, Greenfield and Cohen began searching for a bank to lend them money. Repeatedly they found themselves rejected because the gas station could only be leased for one year at a time and it was judged unwise to invest large amounts of capital in such a venture. Finally they managed to receive a $4,000 loan and began renovating the station. On May 5, 1978, the parlor opened and throughout the summer experienced success, however, the pair struggled throughout the winter.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In 1980, after experiencing initial success in their attempts to distribute their ice cream to restaurants throughout Vermont, the company moved to a larger facility and began packaging ice cream in pint size containers. In 1984, Häagen-Dazs tried to limit distribution of Ben & Jerry's in Boston, prompting Ben & Jerry's to file suit against Häagen-Dazs' parent company, Pillsbury, in its now famous "What's the Doughboy Afraid Of?" campaign.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1987 Häagen-Dazs again tried to enforce exclusive distribution, and Ben & Jerry's filed its second lawsuit against the Pillsbury Company.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In April 2000, Ben & Jerry's was bought by the multinational food giant Unilever.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Since the purchase, Greenfield and Cohen have continued to be involved at the company but Jerry said in an interview they had "no responsibility, no authority, and very little influence."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Political activismEdit

On April 18, 2016, Greenfield and Cohen were arrested at a Democracy Awakening protest in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Personal lifeEdit

In 1987, Greenfield married Elizabeth Skarie and in 1988, they had a son Tyrone.<ref>Biography.com: "Jerry Greenfield biography" Template:Webarchive retrieved November 19, 2013</ref> He resides in Williston, Vermont, a small town just outside Burlington.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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