Jerry Greenfield

Jerry Greenfield married Elizabeth Skarie in 1987 and the next year the couple had a son named Tyrone.

Jerry presently lives in Williston, Vermont, which is a small town just outside of Burlington.

Jerry Greenfield was born into a Jewish family on March 14, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a stockbroker.

Soon, his family moved to Merrick, Long Island, where he attended Smith Street Elementary and Merrick Avenue Junior High School. It was here that during a gym class he met his future business partner Ben Cohen. Both Jerry and Ben were some of the widest kids in the class; they immediately connected and developed a deep bond of friendship.

Later, Jerry attended Calhoun High School along with Cohen. He was a meticulous and hardworking student throughout high school. As expected, he chose to study pre-med for graduation.

In 1969, he joined Oberlin College and finally left Long Island, the place where he grew up and spent most of his youth. In college, he worked as an ice cream scooper in his spare time.

He graduated in 1973 but failed to enter medical school. He then returned to New York where he worked as a lab technician and stayed with Cohen.

In 1976, Jerry Greenfield moved back to New York to live with Ben Cohen again. It was then that the two friends dreamt of starting a business. Being food enthusiasts, they wanted to do something in the food business.

They explored the possibility of selling Bagels. However, they soon decided to start an ice cream business because of the low cost of equipments. Together, they underwent a five dollar correspondence course in ice-cream making and opened the Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlour in a renovated gas station at Burlington, Vermont, in the summer of 1978.

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was an instant hit and they began selling their product out of Greenfield’s car. In 1980, they experienced success in distributing their ice cream to restaurants. Soon, they moved to a bigger place, packaging ice cream in pint size containers. In the next five years, they also opened franchises in the neighbouring states.

Their product’s fame was such that in 1984 they had to fight a legal war with Pillsbury, the parent company of Häagen-Dazs—an ice cream brand. Pillsbury was overwhelmed by the growing success of Ben & Jerry and had tried to restrict their distribution. Ben and Jerry eventually won the battle.

By 1986, Ben & Jerry constructed a manufacturing unit in Waterbury and donated 7.5 percent of the company’s earnings to their non-profit, Ben & Jerry’s Foundation which benefited various causes.

The book ‘Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book’ co-authored with Nancy Stevens and published 1987 tells admirers the story of how the firm was started by the two childhood friends and their journey to success.

In ‘Ben & Jerry’s Double Dip: How to Run a Values-Led Business and Make Money, Too’ published 1997, Cohen and Greenfield show the way to create values-led business that is profitable for both the owner as well as the community.