Ben & Jerry’s announced Tuesday that it would release a limited-run ice cream flavor to raise money in support of criminal justice reform.
The new ice cream, called “Justice ReMix’d,” is flavored with cinnamon and chocolate, and contains chunks of fudge brownies and cinnamon rolls, according to the company.
{mosads}A portion of the sales will go to the Advancement Project National Office’s “Free and Safe” campaign, which provides resources to communities to counter police brutality and to restore voting rights to felons, among other priorities, according to the Ben & Jerry’s website.
“Our approach to creating social change is to raise up the work non-profits are doing on the ground. We bring every resource we have to support them—our business voice, our connection with fans, our Scoop Shop community and of course, ice cream. Somehow, it’s easier to talk about difficult issues over a scoop or two,” said Ben Cohen, the company’s co-founder.
Judith Browne Dianis, director of the Advancement Project National Office, said in a statement that the federal government and other entities should focus resources on building up historically disenfranchised communities, and called for an end to practices long targeted by progressives such as cash bail.
“Our country needs to invest in services that build up communities rather than those that tear them down,” she said. “That means ending a wealth-based pre-trial detention system that locks people up because they are poor, Black or Brown.”
“It means dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, divesting from criminalizing students, and investing in the creation of high-quality education and services. It’s time to reimagine safety and justice,” Browne Dianis added.
Ben & Jerry’s founders Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are longtime political activists, although they have had no formal role with the company since selling it to Unilever in 2000. Cohen serves as a national co-chair on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign.
In May, the company spent about $83,000 in one week on Facebook ads promoting criminal justice reform.