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B & J is making a new flavor in honor of Elton John's concert next week It's called Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road. It contains EJ's favorite things. ALL the proceeds from this flavor will bedonated to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
Yup, B&J is definately an evil company.....
Don't recall anyone stating that Ben and Jerry's is an "evil company." The quality of the ice cream has been altered since Ben and Jerry were the sole owners. Doesn't make the current version of B & J's evil.
Don't recall anyone stating that Ben and Jerry's is an "evil company." The quality of the ice cream has been altered since Ben and Jerry were the sole owners. Doesn't make the current version of B & J's evil.
It was a tongue in cheek remark......no offense. When it comes to maple syrup and B&J some of us Vermonter get abit testy.
It's just up the road from me and I know a few longtime employees and they still feel they make the best ice cream in the world and I believe them. I do also know there alot of awesome small ice cream companies, a bunch in Maine and all over the country that make equally fantastic ice cream but I never mention that.
I haven't asked in awhile so I assume every employee still gets to take home 3 pints of ice cream every day they work.
It was a tongue in cheek remark......no offense. When it comes to maple syrup and B&J some of us Vermonter get abit testy.
It's just up the road from me and I know a few longtime employees and they still feel they make the best ice cream in the world and I believe them. I do also know there alot of awesome small ice cream companies, a bunch in Maine and all over the country that make equally fantastic ice cream but I never mention that.
I haven't asked in awhile so I assume every employee still gets to take home 3 pints of ice cream every day they work.
Yep! 3 pints every day they work! We just went through the tour Tuesday afternoon. A definate play ground for kids all ages It was well worth the trip up from WRJ. We never did hit an actual "creemee" stand but did get an awesome soft serve at a country store on Rt. 4 going into Quechee. The owner, Jack, stood and talked with us for close to a half hour. Gave us the low down on VT in the winter. Anyway, the icecream was great! I know that he mixed it and added flavorings.
The trip to the factory and visitor center in Waterbury is OK for the kids. We did it fifteen years ago. I very rarely buy the stuff now. It's OK, but overpriced, but I just finished a two week hike on the Long Trail and when passing through Johnson I could not resist to get a pint of Cherry Garcia for old times sake. Kind of funny, when I was living in Anchorage, Ak we could buy B&Js cheaper at the supermarket there than we could when we visited here. Just goes to show what name brand recognition and hype will do to a product.
Just goes to show what name brand recognition and hype will do to a product.
I think that is so true and one of the reasons BJ is unique. Food companies spends millions of dollars on brand recognition and marketing/advertising/hype.
BJ didn't spend millions on fancy and expensive print ads before Unilever, It was community involvement(you wouldn't believe how much ice cream they donate to Vermont schools) and social activision.
They didn't produce ads on how they were were saving the planet, it was the other way around. They did the social/community work which then begat the recognition.
Stood up against the chemical companies when they refused to take milk with Bovine Human Growth Hormone. Just a couple of years ago a big milk company in Maine, Oakhurst, did the same and held strong and won against lawsuits and other pressures from Monsanto.
Yup, it's ain't cheap but when compared pricewise with the other super-premium ice creams it's right in line. At our local grocery store they sell seconds for $2.50 not as cheap as a half gallon of Hood on sale but IMHO the two don't compare qualitywise.
I think that is so true and one of the reasons BJ is unique. Food companies spends millions of dollars on brand recognition and marketing/advertising/hype.
BJ didn't spend millions on fancy and expensive print ads before Unilever, It was community involvement(you wouldn't believe how much ice cream they donate to Vermont schools) and social activision.
They didn't produce ads on how they were were saving the planet, it was the other way around. They did the social/community work which then begat the recognition.
Stood up against the chemical companies when they refused to take milk with Bovine Human Growth Hormone. Just a couple of years ago a big milk company in Maine, Oakhurst, did the same and held strong and won against lawsuits and other pressures from Monsanto.
Yup, it's ain't cheap but when compared pricewise with the other super-premium ice creams it's right in line. At our local grocery store they sell seconds for $2.50 not as cheap as a half gallon of Hood on sale but IMHO the two don't compare qualitywise.
<sigh> Two guys from New York decide to get into the ice cream business. They come to Vermont, set up shop in an abandoned AMOCO station, choose a recipe out of a cookbook that uses gums as fillers, when only a few blocks away, the research center at UVM is making PURE ice cream and trying to promote it. All the New Yorkers and college students in Burlington flock to their ice cream stand, and a legend is born.
Because the ice cream is from Vermont, and the boys are from New York, it resonates with New Yorkers, and because the boys hit on the cause du' jour, they gain market share. They make fancy flavors, they play games with names. Marketing is all about playing with perception. The perception is the B&J is great ice cream based on a Vermont tradition and it supports good causes. The reality is that it is a second rate ice cream, now owned by a conglomerate, and has less relation to quality than Hagen Dazz, which is a fake Scandinavian name based out of Brooklyn, which has less relation to Vermont than the local cree-mee stands, which are NOT allowed to advertise as ice cream by the legal definitions in Vermont. If you get past the hype, and analyze the relationship of the B&J to old-time Vermont values, the best I can say about B&J is that it keeps Vermont cows employed and makes a living off the tourists looking for a fantasy world.
I wish the old Car-Burs restaurant had enjoyed the success that B&J has had.
<sigh> Two guys from New York decide to get into the ice cream business. They come to Vermont, set up shop in an abandoned AMOCO station, choose a recipe out of a cookbook that uses gums as fillers, when only a few blocks away, the research center at UVM is making PURE ice cream and trying to promote it. All the New Yorkers and college students in Burlington flock to their ice cream stand, and a legend is born.
Because the ice cream is from Vermont, and the boys are from New York, it resonates with New Yorkers, and because the boys hit on the cause du' jour, they gain market share. They make fancy flavors, they play games with names. Marketing is all about playing with perception. The perception is the B&J is great ice cream based on a Vermont tradition and it supports good causes. The reality is that it is a second rate ice cream, now owned by a conglomerate, and has less relation to quality than Hagen Dazz, which is a fake Scandinavian name based out of Brooklyn, which has less relation to Vermont than the local cree-mee stands, which are NOT allowed to advertise as ice cream by the legal definitions in Vermont. If you get past the hype, and analyze the relationship of the B&J to old-time Vermont values, the best I can say about B&J is that it keeps Vermont cows employed and makes a living off the tourists looking for a fantasy world.
I wish the old Car-Burs restaurant had enjoyed the success that B&J has had.
They learned how to make ice cream from a correspondence course not a recipe. Hagen Dazz was started in the Bronx not Brooklyn and sold to Pillsbury in the early 80's.
If you talk to the many farmers who sell to B&J they would disagree with you. People buy Haggen-Dazz and B&J cause it's great ice cream, most don't give a hoot where they came from. When Vermont became the 14th state many of the original settlers were from Mass and NY.
Their success is based on Vermont values. Your post disrespects all the Vermonters who take great pride in producing it.
I think that is so true and one of the reasons BJ is unique. Food companies spends millions of dollars on brand recognition and marketing/advertising/hype.
BJ didn't spend millions on fancy and expensive print ads before Unilever, It was community involvement(you wouldn't believe how much ice cream they donate to Vermont schools) and social activision.
They didn't produce ads on how they were were saving the planet, it was the other way around. They did the social/community work which then begat the recognition.
Stood up against the chemical companies when they refused to take milk with Bovine Human Growth Hormone. Just a couple of years ago a big milk company in Maine, Oakhurst, did the same and held strong and won against lawsuits and other pressures from Monsanto.
Yup, it's ain't cheap but when compared pricewise with the other super-premium ice creams it's right in line. At our local grocery store they sell seconds for $2.50 not as cheap as a half gallon of Hood on sale but IMHO the two don't compare qualitywise.
I remember a Ben & Jerry's radio ad/jingle from the early 80's. It played on LI radio:
(forgive the spelling)
There ain't no Frujen
There ain't no Glas
There ain't no Haagen
There ain't no Daz
There ain't nobody
Named Steve at Steve's
But there's two real guys
named Ben and Jerry.
I don't know if they played this for the LI market out of nostalgia -- B&J grew up in Merrick; my sister-in-law graduated with them, or if it was a shot at the big time -- the NY& NYC premium ice cream market.
They learned how to make ice cream from a correspondence course not a recipe.
Even better. Come to Vermont, where making ice cream is already an art, send off for a correspondence course from some other location, and declare the resulting product to be made in Vermont. Maybe Vermonters could set up a correspondence course on how to make a surfboard and sell it to Californians...
Hagen Dazz was started in the Bronx not Brooklyn and sold to Pillsbury in the early 80's.
I got my borough wrong, but it is still better ice cream, no make that REAL ice-cream..
If you talk to the many farmers who sell to B&J they would disagree with you. People buy Haggen-Dazz and B&J cause it's great ice cream, most don't give a hoot where they came from. When Vermont became the 14th state many of the original settlers were from Mass and NY.
Actually, we kicked the New York land grabbers out. Remember the Allens and the fight between New Hampshire and New York trying to claim Vermont? People from New York were LITERALLY driven out of the state.
As for giving a hoot where it came from, your statement flies in the face of the entire Vermont marketing campaign that started in the 1930s and is continuing full force today. Vermont is a vital part of the B&J marketing strategy and income stream. (-something that Green Mtn. Coffee Roasters has recently lost sight of.)
Their success is based on Vermont values. Your post disrespects all the Vermonters who take great pride in producing it.
No it isn't, and I do NOT respect those who take great pride in producing it. I respect that they have to find work, and I respect their attention to detail, but when you sculpt manure into a bust of Ira Allen with great care, it is still a pile of manure, and when you use an inferior method with exact standards to make ice cream and slap a "made in Vermont" label on it, it is still inferior ice cream.
I happen to have a strong food sensitivity to guar gum, and especially when it is coupled with mucous promoting milk, it can clog my throat to the point that I have difficulty breathing. That doesn't happen when I eat REAL ice cream. Until they change their ingredient list to remove the gums, I'll not change my position.
If the agriculture dept in Vermont had bull gonads at the time of the first iterations of the product, they would have immediately declared it to not be ice-cream, just like cree-mees and softserve are not ice cream. Maybe it could have been marketed as cream flavored chewing gum.
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The quality of the ice cream has been altered since Ben and Jerry were the sole owners. Doesn't make the current version of B & J's evil. 
Remember the Allens and the fight between New Hampshire and New York trying to claim Vermont? People from New York were LITERALLY driven out of the state.
That doesn't happen when I eat REAL ice cream. Until they change their ingredient list to remove the gums, I'll not change my position. 
