Five Dollars and a Dream

Photo by Mr. T in DC

The entrepreneurs behind the Ben & Jerry's ice cream brand got their start back in 1977when a correspondence course in ice cream making cost just five dollars. Friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield took this class then with a $12,000 investment, launched their first "scoop shop" in Burlington, Vt. Cohen and Greenfield gave away free scoops of ice cream to everyone who came in to mark their first anniversary in 1979, a tradition the company continues until today.

After high school, Cohen attended several colleges throughout the Northeast but didn't graduate from any of them. Greenfield, on the other hand, attended Oberlin College and received an undergraduate degree. Upon graduation, he moved into a Manhattan apartment with Cohen and worked in a lab while submitting his applications for medical school. His attempts at getting into medical school were unsuccessful so he and Cohen decided to start a company together in the food industry.

Within a few years, Ben & Jerry's had a packing plant to pack and deliver pints to local grocers and restaurants as well as several franchises. By the time the company celebrated its 10th-year anniversary, sales were over $32 million. Many people credit the company's success to innovative flavors and catchy names such as New York Super Fudge Chunk and Cherry Garcia. Ben & Jerry's pride themselves in using milk from cows not treated with growth hormones and use eco-friendly practices including recycled packaging, wherever possible. Cohen and Greenfield were named the U.S. Small Business Persons of the Year in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan.