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2. 2007 Highlights The Short & Sweet Version This is our nineteenth year of reporting on our Company’s social and environmental performance. Every year has its swirls and chunks, surprises and difficulties, and this year was no exception. The full story is available in the body of this report, but for folks who like to dig out the chunks first, here are some notable Ben & Jerry’s moments from 2007: In our Supply Chain… In support of small farmers around the world, we expanded our purchasing of Fair Trade Certified ingredients in our global supply chain in 2007. We began a four-year transition to Certified Humane Cage-Free suppliers for all of the eggs used in our U.S. ice cream production in 2007, fulfilling a promise we made a year ago. We believe this transition will make our egg supply the envy of the food industry — and make us the darling of ethical consumers and chickens everywhere. We’ll continue to use free-range eggs for 100% of our European production. To keep up with our growing U.S. business, we opened a new Ben & Jerry’s production line in an existing Unilever ice cream facility in Henderson, Nevada, in June of 2007. We believe this decision makes sense from an environmental and economic standpoint, as it will help us keep down the carbon dioxide emissions — and costs — associated with transporting our products across a large continent. We also made sure to connect with family farmers who have pledged not to treat their cows with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) to supply the milk and cream for the ice cream we’re making out West. While it was a difficult decision for our Company to produce ice cream for the U.S. market outside of Vermont — given that our identity is so closely connected to our groovy, progressive, and green home state — we feel we’re going about this next phase in our growth in a responsible way that’s consistent with our values. We did not reach one of our goals for 2007, which was to achieve Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for our new pint container in the United States. FSC certification is a rigorous, third-party guarantee that wood and paper products are sourced from forests that are sustainably managed. This project was delayed several times over the course of 2007, but we remain committed to this goal and hope the transition to FSC certified paperboard will be completed in 2008. We’ll also be working to bring our European packaging up to a similar certification at the same time. For the Environment… In our ongoing quest to help the farmers who supply our dairy ingredients to pursue sustainable practices, We worked hard in 2007 to reduce our climate impacts, investing in efficiency projects in our manufacturing plants, renewable energy, and carbon offsets. For the sixth year in a row, we offset all 5,140 tons of CO2 emissions that we created in our Vermont manufacturing operations through our partners at NativeEnergy. In Europe, as a part of our Climate Neutral Ice Cream initiative, we committed €2 million over five years to purchase high quality offsets for all of the emissions created in the process of making and selling Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in the European Union, from cow to cone. All of the offsets we purchase funded new renewable energy projects. In the Community… From Ben & Jerry’s headquarters, we devoted over $3.2 million in resources to hundreds of projects and groups that promote positive social and environmental change.
In its 29th year of Scoop Shop tradition, Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day served up some 1.3 million free scoops to ice cream lovers worldwide, extending thanks to our neighbors while helping We had a great year of launching new ice cream flavors, and three of our latest concoctions have the added benefit of paying a royalty to a nonprofit organization. Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCONE Dream and Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler in the U.S. and Bohemian Raspberry in Europe all hit the sweet spot — and the jackpot — for causes ranging from Farm Aid to AIDS education. In all, Ben & Jerry’s royalty flavors paid over $600,000 to nonprofit organizations around the world in 2007. The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation continued its high-impact grant-making to progressive organizations working to address the root causes of social and environmental problems in the United States. Our Company allocated $1,699,684 to the Foundation in 2007, a 7% increase, and the Foundation awarded grants totaling over $1,688,000 over the course of the year.
In the Public Eye…
In 2007, we sponsored a resolution and circulated it among U.S. businesses calling on the world community to use economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure to protect the people of Darfur. While it had nothing to do with ice cream, we believe that in a time of extraordinary humanitarian crisis, we all have a responsibility to speak up for justice. |
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For the United States market, we transitioned the vanilla extract in our smooth Vanilla ice cream — and the cocoa powder in our smooth Chocolate ice cream — to Fair Trade Certified suppliers. In the European market, we added Chunky Monkey and Vanilla Toffee Crunch to our list of Fairtrade Certified flavours, made with Fairtrade banana puree, sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla. We’re proud to be a part of the growing Fair Trade movement that is helping small farmers in the developing world to earn a decent living, take care of their land, and send their children to school. 
we took a giant leap forward in 2007. Our European Caring Dairy program started a partnership with a Dutch cooperative of over 500 dairy farmers. The CONO cooperative will be Ben & Jerry’s sole European supplier of milk and cream, while all farmers will use the Caring Dairy toolkit to drive continuous improvement towards sustainable practices. In the United States, we are also growing the Dairy Stewardship Alliance to include more Vermont farmers, and transforming our sustainable agriculture toolkit into an interactive online resource.
Starting with the Company’s contribution to the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation and extending to product donations, flavor royalties paid to nonprofit organizations, community service, and issue-based marketing, we put more money, ice cream, and employee time than ever towards living our values. 
Around the world, Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop teams rolled up their sleeves and contributed over $500,000 in product donations, cash, and employee time to support local community projects. From relief efforts to blood drives to fundraisers, our 
local nonprofit partners to spread the word about their mission. In all, the global event raised over $250,000 for hundreds of organizations in communities where Ben & Jerry’s franchisees are doing well by doing good.
Inspired by An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s 2006 documentary film on global warming, Ben & Jerry’s kicked off an 
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared in December, 2006 that it believed meat and milk from cloned animals was safe to eat, we were beside ourselves, twice over! Please click the button below to install. It should only take a few seconds.
