I love ice cream as much as the next guy. OK, way more than the next guy. I've eaten far more than my fair share of Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's lux frozen treats. But though I've watched with fascination as Ben & Jerry's exalted hippie icons and the odd politician with its flavors, I've never thought of an ice cream as an icon of political opinion.No more will I hold such a narrow world view! This weekend, Haagen-Dazs announced a new flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee. The flavor isn't meant for its delicious honey taste, as it is to bring more visibility to the plight of the honey bees (overworked, it seems, from too much travel and forced labor in the almond groves, though cell phone towers have also been suspected). Haagen-Dazs is donating $250,000 to two universities to study Colony Collapse Disorder, and a spokesperson says that 40% of the company's flavors depend (in one way or another) on bees: "We use 100% all natural ingredients like strawberries, raspberries and almonds which we get from California. The bee problem could badly hurt supply from the Pacific Northwest."
On the other side of the ice cream aisle, Ben (Cohen) and Jerry (Greenfield), founders and corporate namesakes of Ben & Jerry's, have gone public with their endorsement of Barack Obama for president. They will tour Vermont in Obamamobiles, giving away scoops of "Cherries for Change" ice cream. While fans on Obama's web site seem excited, there's no news as to what sort of flavor "Cherries for Change" is (or is it just Cherry Garcia with a new label?), whether "Baracky Road" or "Yes we Pecan" will follow, or if corporate overlord Unilever (NYSE: UL) is distributing the flavor to grocery store freezer sections near you.
I honor Haagen-Dazs' effort, though the corporate effort rings false to me; after all, if you believe what people like Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, J.B. MacKinnon and Alisa Smith have been writing, it's food companies like the ice cream division's owner, General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS), that are the root cause of the problem. The quest for ever-cheaper ingredients has meant industrial farming practices; and these throw the world out of agricultural balance. Ergo: Stressed-out bees.
I have no issues with ice cream companies campaigning for causes, but it's certainly an unusual turn of events, almost as if a fictional character were stating its beliefs (Cap'n Crunch for Hillary! Toucan Sam fights rainforest destruction!).
The question is, will America's sweet tooth fuel its activism? I suppose it's the sort of eccentric behavior America is built upon. And I'd volunteer to eat a pint of either (or both!) flavors, and let you know how my convictions have changed.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-19-2008 @ 8:22PM
ED said...
I HAVE BOYCOTTED BEN AND JERRY ICE CREAM FOR YEARS BECAUSE OF THEIR SUPPORT FOR ABU JAMAL THE COP KILLER.
2-19-2008 @ 10:21PM
Yojimbo said...
Nice job discovering your caps lock key.
2-19-2008 @ 11:16PM
Karli said...
good job, sarah. great writing.
2-20-2008 @ 7:56AM
wayne d said...
We buy their ice cream every week. after reading this article and the comments we will NEVER buy it again. I did not know that they are part of the fruit and nuts people. The ice cream is great but their political ideas are not good for America. I hope no one buy their ice cream. God Bless America.
4-08-2008 @ 2:00AM
David in Bangkok said...
CALL TO BOYCOTT HAAGEN DAZS ICE CREAM IN THAILAND
A couple of months ago Haagen Dazs raised the price of a pint (473ml) of ice cream from an expensive Bt299 ($9.50) to an astronomical Bt329 ($10.45). For several years I bought this ice cream without much thought but when the price soared beyond the philological barrier of 300 Baht I snapped. I finally stopped to think about how much money is actually being spent on this product. I lived in America before moving to Thailand and as late as 2002 when this same ice cream went on sale, I would pay the equivalent of Bt79 ($2.50) a pint.
Haagen Dazs is purely a made up name to sound expensive. The name means nothing in any language. It is pretty darn good ice cream that was conceived in 1961 and manufactured exclusively for sale in the United States. The American conglomerate General Mills bought the company in 1983 and soon began distributing Haagen Dazs worldwide.
What could justify this price increase or the original price for that matter? Most will say it is the rising fuel costs, import duties and/or taxes the government needs to continue to provide all of us with the services and infrastructure we have become accustomed. I say there is no justification! Most of the 65 million Thais cannot afford this product even once a year. It falls on the tourists and expats to keep this company in the Kingdom. When I venture out to the high-end malls the Haagen Dazs outlets are usually empty however they only need a couple of us a day to make money.
Buying Haagen Dazs ice cream now is like buying the premium French bottled water Evian (naive spelled backwards). In the United States only divorced women with excellent financial settlements can afford to drink it. It’s water! Haagen Dazs is far too expensive and there is little justification to sell it locally. As a concession the poor, Haagen Dazs makes a 100ml cup for Bt109 which is about $3.50 or $.75 for each small bite. Haagen Dazs cannot be seen as contributing to the concept of a sufficiency economy in Thailand on any level. In plain English, “we are getting ripped off”.
I call on everyone to boycott Haagen Dazs ice cream until such time as General Mills comes to their corporate senses and reduces the cost of their product significantly. Paying Bt329 for a pint of ice cream is nuts (no pun intended). We should demonstrate that we are smart shoppers and not operating from the shallow end of the gene pool.