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Founders Of Ben & Jerry’s Support Bernie Sanders With New Ice Cream Flavor

By Zakiya Jamal
Published on: 10:47 PST, Apr 3, 2016

Although the actual Ben & Jerry’s brand is staying out of politics, the founders of the company, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, have decided to throw their hats (and ice cream) into the ring with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Ben and Jerry, who founded their ice cream company in the state of Vermont where Bernie was senator, went out in New York City on March 31 and April 1 to hand out their new Bernie Sander’s flavor of ice ream. On HuffPost Politics‘ Facebook Live Stream, Ben and Jerry explained what exactly the “Bernie Yearnings Sundae” is and why they felt so compelled to make an ice cream flavor for Sanders.

“It’s essentially mint chocolate chip ice cream except somehow all the chips have risen to the top,” Ben explained. “Just like all the wealth that’s been created since the end of the recession has gone to the top one percent. So the way you eat it is you take your soup spoon and you whack the chocolate chip into little pieces and then you mix it around to put the wealth back where it’s supposed to be. Spread out amongst all of us instead of all going to the top one percent who are essentially paying off politicians with campaign contributions to pass laws that take our money and stick it in their pockets.”

Jerry then went on to say that they were giving out the sundaes free to all the Bernie volunteers, supporters, and anyone else that went out to Union Square and Washington Square Park to learn more about Bernie and his message. Many people came out to show their support, and of course, to grab pictures with Ben and Jerry.

According to the Bernie’s Yearnings site Ben and Jerry set up, they have been constituents of Bernie Sanders for 30 years and fully support him in his run and goals.

“We’ve seen him in action and we believe in him,” Ben writes on the site.

Unfortunately, if you wanted to try the Bernie’s Yearnings ice cream, Ben only made 40 pints of the limited edition flavor, and they were all given away in a random drawing. However, to continue to show their support for Bernie, Ben has made “Bernie’s Bowls” that people can enter to win and Jerry is selling lit up Bernie signs. Their site also offers a link to donate to Bernie’s campaign.

Besides giving out free ice cream, Ben and Jerry have been campaigning for Bernie Sanders very strongly. Besides speaking to HuffPost Politics, they were also on CNBC and The LF Show recently. Besides campaigning for Bernie, Ben and Jerry also support the Stamp Stampede non-profit organization, which goes against the use of money as bribery towards politicians, a campaign that Sanders also supports.

As the Democratic primaries continue and the race between Bernie and Sanders continues to get closer and closer, you can be sure that Ben and Jerry will continue to be vocal about who they think should be our next president. But if you’re not a Bernie supporter, don’t feel bad about still loving Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. As Ben stated, the company and his and Jerry’s political beliefs are two very separate things.

Check out Ben and Jerry’s full interview with HuffPost Politics below:

https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostPolitics/videos/10153870337827911/

[Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images]

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