Ben and Jerry sold to Unilever years ago. I know they supposedly had it written into their contract that they were supposed to retain the autonomy to continue their public interests to take stands and support causes... but the thing is, once they sold to Unilever, it was just a matter of time before Unilever found a way to exercise their stake in ownership to claim that Ben & Jerry were hurting the brand through their causes.
I don't know why exactly Ben & Jerry sold to Unilever and risked their autonomy... but you have to argue that at the time they were willing to risk having more people making decisions than they wanted to keep their autonomy. I'm not saying it was greed, just saying they had to weigh that at the time... because there's no way any corporate takeover results in those kinds of things working out.
Every time a company takes over another, they always start with "nothing will change" and they claim to want to keep all old employees on board... then in a year or two they start finding ways to eliminate positions at the company they buy. This is how business always works.
Ben & Jerry have been fighting with Unilever for a while over various things. It's hard for me to feel too sorry for their loss of autonomy when they handed over the keys willingly for the buyout years ago.
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