Ben and Jerry's

1) How has Ben & Jerry’s fulfilled its mission statement? What evidence can you provide regarding Ben & Jerry’s performance on each of the three dimensions of the mission statement?

When Ben & Jerry started the company in Burlington, VT the year was 1978. The mission was one that was trifold and that chose to focus on product, economic and social based values.

The product dimension included making, distributing and selling the finest quality all natural ice cream and related products made from Vermont dairy products. They have done this by introducing around 75 flavors of ice cream and sorbet. These flavors were introduced to be able to continue to satisfy the increasing variety of customer that continues to enjoy Ben & Jerry’s. They used local merchants to help develop those flavors and continue to use valuable time and money to search for the highest quality inputs for the ice cream.

The economic dimension was to operate the company on a sound financial basis of profitable growth, increasing value for the shareholders, and creating career opportunities and financial rewards for the employees. From this point of view, they have both fulfilled and fell short of fulfilling this part of the statement. The business did grow, but then plateaued as far as stock price was concerned. When compared to similar based product companies, the earning fell short. When the average return on stockholders’ equity did increase, it was only a slight increase. This was largely due to the company paying the higher prices for the milk and cream, as well as its stance in charitable giving.

The social based values of the company were to operate in a way that actively recognizes the central role that business plays in the structure of society by initiating innovative ways to improve the quality of life in the local community. I would say that they have succeeded in this part of their mission statement, even if it has cost them some money on the profit side of the business. One of the main examples that stands out here is the one when they were faced with the problem of disposing their waste water, finding a way to source the local pig farmer to help in that disposal, and then further funding that pig farm with monies to be able to purchase additional piglets.

2) How did Ben & Jerry’s become a takeover target?

Ben & Jerry became a target for takeover due to the short falls in the economic growth of the