Ben & Jerry’s Says It ‘Tops Non-Dairy’ Category With 19 Vegan Ice Cream Offerings

Ben & Jerry’s has released five new vegan flavours, expanding its non-dairy range to 19 ice creams in total. According to the brand, the new plant-based additions to Ben & Jerry’s means it now “tops the non-dairy category” and is the “number one producer” of desserts that are made entirely without animals. 

World famous ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s has added five new vegan flavours to its non-dairy almond milk and sunflower butter-based range. These include 100% plant-based versions of some of the company’s most popular ice creams to date as well as “powerhouse partnership” flavours, including freedom fighter Colin Kaepernick’s Change the Whirled, the Jimmy Fallon-inspired The Tonight Dough, classic Phish Food, Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream and the Karamel Sutra. 

Known for its progressive positioning, the brand – whose founders have famously been arrested after standing up for Democracy Awakening’s direct action campaign and are vocal backers of the Black Lives Matter movement – says that a portion of proceeds from the non-dairy Phish Food, just like its original counterpart, will continue to donate funds to the Waterwheel Foundation and other sustainability initiatives in its home base in Vermont. 

Ever since we launched our first non-dairy flavours, we wanted to provide some of our classics and a few unique flavours that are only available as non-dairy.

Dena Wimette, Innovation Guru, Ben & Jerry’s

With its new flavours, Ben & Jerry’s certified-vegan ice cream range boasts 19 flavours in total, and the brand now claims that it is the “number one producer of super-premium Non-Dairy desserts.” 

Commenting on its expanded plant-based offerings, Ben & Jerry’s innovation guru Dena Wimette said: “Ever since we launched our first non-dairy flavours, we wanted to provide some of our classics and a few unique flavours that are only available as non-dairy.”

“This year, we were honoured to partner with Colin Kaepernick while also tapping into our Top 10 flavours with Americone Dream, Phish Food and Tonight Dough. All of the delicious and none of the dairy!”

Ben & Jerry’s is a subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch CPG giant Unilever, who also owns other well-known ice creams such as Magnum, Wall’s, Solero and Cornetto. The Vermont-based activist ice cream brand’s move to bolster its dairy-free offerings is in line with the global conglomerate’s aggressive push to capitalise on the plant-based trend. 

We are seeing in every single country in the world a shift towards more plant-based diets, even in emerging markets.

Alan Jope, CEO, Unilever

Earlier this year, the firm’s CEO Alan Jope described the rise of plant-based foods as an “inexorable trend”. Within the U.S., plant-based food retail sales hit a record US$7 billion in 2020.

“We are seeing in every single country in the world a shift towards more plant-based diets, even in emerging markets,” said the Unilever chief. 

Given the business opportunity, Unilever has gone all-in on the plant-based food category, recently setting out its ambitious €1 billion (approx. US$1.2 billion) sales target for the sector within the next five to seven years. 

At the time of the announcement, the company said that a big part of reaching its goal will be ramping up vegan products across the most popular brands in its portfolio, listing Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum and Hellmann’s as its top household names to go in this direction. 

In an interview, Jope said that these brands’ new vegan offerings that have launched on the market in recent years have performed “brilliantly”. 

Lead image courtesy of Ben & Jerry’s.