CEO bets Ben & Jerry’s is ready for the world

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Jostein Solheim, who last week celebrated his one-year anniversary as chief executive officer of Ben & Jerry’s, says he’s not your typical Unilever executive.

The $60 billion Anglo-Dutch company headquartered in London, which sells products ranging from ice cream to laundry detergent, bought Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 for $326 million.

“I’ve always been a little quirky,” Solheim said over a coffee. “I’m loud. I’m not very respectful of hierarchy. I think we all do important jobs. Everyone from a driver to someone on the factory line are important people in my world. I’ll take time to talk to them, and I might not take time out to talk to some pumped-up corporate whatever. Sometimes I’m not that career savvy.”

Solheim, a Norwegian, has been involved in ice cream for 15 of his 20 years at Unilever, mostly in Europe, before coming to the United States four years ago to run the company’s ice cream operations in North America, not including Ben & Jerry’s.

Unilever owns Breyer’s, Popsicle, Good Humor and Klondike in addition to Ben & Jerry’s, making it the biggest ice cream maker in the world, Solheim said. He went through a long interview process for the top job at the Vermont ice cream maker.

“I knew the U.S. market. I knew the global market,” Solheim said. “I think some people thought, ‘We’ll get rid of him, get him up there (to Vermont).’”

Ben & Jerry’s was founded in 1978 by entrepreneurs Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. When the company was sold in 2000 to Unilever as a publicly traded company, there was considerable consternation among the company’s many fans that the international conglomerate would turn the uniquely Vermont company into just another brand, such as Lipton tea or Dove soap.

But more than a decade later, Solheim says people should feel “quite reassured” about the fate of Ben & Jerry’s in Unilever’s hands. He points out that the company has its own independent board of directors within the Unilever management structure, a generally unheard of arrangement for a small subsidiary of a giant corporation.

Solheim said it also helps that the chief executive officer of Unilever, Paul Polman, is a “huge fan” of Ben & Jerry’s.

Solheim said one challenge right now is to deal with an upswing in prices for many of the commodities Ben & Jerry’s uses, including milk. A longer term challenge is to continue growing, but in the right way.

“We want to bring the real Ben & Jerry’s spirit to the world,” Solheim said. “How do we package that up and make sure we’re always staying true to our mission and find our way into France and Italy? That’s a big part of our growth — bringing this product to new cultures and new lands.”