The Best Idea Yet - 🍦Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food: A Collab Born in an Old Gas Station | 18

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Phish Food: it’s more Vermont than Bernie Sanders snowboarding down a mountain of maple sugar. This philanthropic ice cream came out of an epic ‘90s partnership between two Burlington legends: the jam band Phish, and Ben & Jerry’s. (You can thank the band for the caramel ribbon) But the Phish Food story really begins with Ben & Jerry themselves: two college dropouts and BFFs who started their business in a dilapidated gas station. These friends braved leaky roofs, frigid temps, and a crisis of faith that almost had them walking away from the business altogether. Instead, they created the first unicorn ice-cream brand and helped write the playbook for companies with a social mission. Find out why complementary cofounders make stronger businesses, how a Vermont-only IPO brought B&Js closer to their community, and why Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food is the best idea yet.Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterFollow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the best idea yet early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Well, is it true what they say? What do they say? That when you're born in Vermont, you come out in flannel. Is that true? I was born and raised in Vermont. You came to Vermont voluntarily as an 18-year-old. Jack, you told me your cousin was a moose. I had to come and see this in real life.

When it rains, it pours maple syrup. Vermont punches above its weight in terms of cultural impact. I would say brand value created per capita. I mean, Vermont is up there with the top economies of the world, Jack. I appreciate that. We got maple syrup. We got cheddar cheese.

We invented the snowboard, true story. And Bernie Sanders decided Vermont was gonna be his home state. But Jack, on a scale of maple syrup to Subaru Outback, how Vermont would you say the topic of today's show is? Oh, this is the hall of fame of Vermont famous people. The Jam Band Fish and Ben and Jerry's. Nick, I've been waiting to do this episode about Ben and Jerry's with you for years,

literally. Ben and Jerry are the heroes of Hat Big. Jack, they are the hippies of chocolate chippies. They're the bros of cookie dough. But in the mid-1990s, those two Burlington legends, Ben and Jerry and Fish, teamed up to make a classic. Fish food, only from Ben and Jerry and Fish teamed up to make a classic. Fish food only from Ben and Jerry's chocolate ice cream with gooey marshmallow caramel swirl and fudge fish. When I'm eating fish food I feel like an archaeologist. You're digging through layers of marshmallow and caramel and then it's like oh a fish! It's a treasure hunt. Each year Ben and Jerry

publishes the top 10 flavors of the year by sales, and Fishfood is a mainstay, along with other legendary collabs with famous folks like Jimmy Fallon, the Tonight Dough, and Stephen Colbert, Americone Dream, and of course, the late, great Jerry Garcia, whose first name conveniently rhymes with cherry. Love how that works. But to tell you the story of Fishfood, we need to start in 1978 with Ben and Jerry themselves, best friends and best failures at the time. Two Long Island buddies who moved up north together to try on some colder careers. Last year, Ben and Jerry saw more than $1 billion in sales, beating Haagen-Dazs by nearly 20%. Ben and Jerry sales were almost double briars, five times Tlenties, and six times Blue Bunnies.

Stick that in your salt and straw. Van Luen? Van Hooen. But if we step outside the ice cream aisle, Ben and Jerry's is doing more revenue than Bumble, Sweet Green, Squarespace, or Planet Fitness. Ben and Jerry, they created the first unicorn ice cream brand,

and they did it together as friends. They overcame leaky roofs, sleep deprivation, and a crisis of fate that almost had them walking away from the business altogether. But this episode isn't just about the founders. It's about fish food. We'll find out how Ben and Jerry convinced four Vermont musicians

who never sell out to buy in. So besties, grab your strongest spoon because you know it's gonna bend on you. Heat up the hot fudge and let's dig in, because Ben and Jerry's fish food is the best idea yet. From Wondery and T-Boy, I'm Nick Martel. And I'm Jack Kraviche Kramer. And this is the best idea yet.

The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. And the bold risk takers who brought them to life. I got that feeling again. Something familiar but new. We got it coming to you. I got that feeling again. They changed the game in one move.

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It's a balmy summer day in Burlington, Vermont. College kids sun themselves on picnic benches outside of the converted gas station across from City Hall Park. But this old gas station doesn't sell unleaded. It sells ice cream. Inside the shop, an old man named Don plays a rebuilt player piano. And in exchange for all that entertainment, Don is getting free ice cream for life. At the counter is a 27-year-old Jerry Greenfield, the shop's co-founder and designated ice cream wizard. His latest flavor concoction, Oreo Mint, is about to run out.

He'll need to fire up his ice cream maker soon, an old-fashioned model that uses rock salt and ice and a hand crank like it was the 1850s. We're in the summer of 1978, and Jerry is gonna need some counter help. So he looks around for his partner, his co-founder, and his best friend, Ben Cohen. Ben's in charge of their shop's non-ice cream items,

crepes, brownies, and sometimes even soup. But Ben's not bent over a simmering pot on the wood-burning stove. He's on top of the building right now, trying to fix the darn roof again with new sheets of plastic. Jerry, he wants no part of that. So he's just hanging out, staying at the counter.

And when the Oreo mint runs out, the customers, they're just gonna have to make do with vanilla. Ben and Jerry grew up on Long Island together and they've been best friends forever. Even their birthdays are just five days apart. Their friendship was forged in seventh grade gym class when neither of them could run a mile in under seven minutes. Now, there is a complementary element to this pair despite their lack of jogging skills. You see, Ben is the idea man. Ben is spontaneous.

He's passionate. He's always challenging them to try new things and throw some pecan into this recipe or that recipe. Meanwhile, Jerry is the peacemaker. He's friendly and personable, but he's more cautious. He likes to set manageable goals that they can achieve. When they first decided to go into business together, Ben had been trying to make it as a potter, while Jerry had tried and failed to get into medical school. So together they figured, why don't we try entrepreneurship? But funny thing, neither of them knew anything about starting a business. Math, financials, numbers, please. They could not tell a balance sheet from a Birkenstock.

But after poring over some business textbooks, they eventually developed a strategy. Find a trendy food item and introduce it to a college town. All right, Jack. So this is the untapped market's angle. Bringing an existing product to a new market. And their first idea, bagels, big doughy bagels. That is, until they learned that the equipment would cost about 40 grand, $40,000 just to make circular bread out of the question. So instead, Ben and Jerry paid $5

to take a correspondence class, basically a class by mail, that Penn State University was offering on how to make ice cream. Jerry in particular was hooked with this class. He was entranced by the chemistry of the process of making ice cream, how eggs and sugar combos can change textures and the mouthfeel. He'd concoct different versions of vanilla to get just the right balance and he turned their shared apartment into America's test kitchen. Soon Jerry was a certified whiz at making gourmet ice cream and now

they needed to find a college town that didn't have ice cream yet. So they were all set to open up in Saratoga Springs, New York where Ben had actually gone to school. But by the time they were ready to become the ice Saratoga Springs, New York, where Ben had actually gone to school. But by the time they were ready to become the ice cream monopoly in town, another boutique ice cream shop had just opened up right under their noses. It puts a kibosh on the whole plan. Their business got cut in half and they hadn't even opened the store yet. So what did Ben and Jerry do, Jack?

Now that their entire business model of being the one and only ice cream store totally fell apart, picked another town. Yeah, they moved towns. Ben and Jerry, they were really focused on that untapped market's angle. For their new destination, they looked at their criteria. College kids, dairy farms nearby, no ice cream competition, and close enough to drive because they couldn't afford a flight. Well, Jack, I'm checking out Google Maps right now and about 116 miles away,

I'm looking at Burlington, Vermont. Burlington, Vermont, a town with zero ice cream shops, for reasons we'll get to later. So Ben and Jerry scraped together four grand each, two of which were borrowed from Ben's dad, by the way, and a secured small bank loan for another $4,000. $12,000 a startup capital? That isn't a lot, even for the 1970s. So the only space that they could actually afford to rent was a dilapidated old gas station with rusty pumps, a sticky floor,

and the faint stench of beef jerky. It did have customer parking. Good point, Jack. Ben and Jerry's very first scoop shop opened on May 5th, 1978. They were selling cones for 52 cents a piece. They start lean and mean, doing most of the labor all by themselves. It's Jerry's job to create the actual flavor recipes using that old fashioned ice cream maker that you have to crank.

And this is a little gross, Nick. I can handle it, Jack. But they even let customers lick the mixing paddles after a batch is done, like my Nana used to let me do. Burlington in the 1970s is the kind of place where a customer might bring in blackberries from their own home garden, and Jerry would mix them into the blackberry ice cream

for the next day's batch. Well, Jack, speaking of flavors, at first, these guys are just sticking to the basics. They got vanilla, they got chocolate, nothing you didn't see in their original ice cream textbook. But soon, they decide to kick it up a notch. Since Jerry is the resident ice cream wizard, Ben is the resident taste tester. But plot twist, Ben has something called anosmia.

Oh, we're going to need a definition of that, Doctor. Anosmia basically means he doesn't smell very well Which dulls his sense of taste too and this medical issue ends up playing a starring role in the success of Ben and Jerry Yeah, they turn their greatest weakness into their greatest strength. Ben's low taste sensitivity Means it takes intense flavors and textures to get his approval He basically forces Jerry to take it up to an 11 because that's the only way he could taste it. Soon, Ben and Jerry are experimenting with wildly adventurous flavors

like banana rum, pina colada, or their first breakout hit, Heath bar crunch. These guys are going severus snape on this thing. They're experimenting with cold concoctions that the old guard would never touch. Their first summer in business, Ben and Jerry average about $650 a day in sales. That's over $3,000 today, or on pace for about $1 million in annual sales. They're also beloved by their community. This is a life goal. Each

is working alongside his best friend. They got their buddy as the piano player in the shop, and they're paying this dude in ice cream. And Ben and Jerry are living the entrepreneurial dream. The only issue is, despite working 16 hour days, they're barely breaking even with that $650 a day in sales. Oh, and Jack, there is one other problem. Remember how Ben was up on that roof

fixing the holes with the sheets of plastic? Well, one day the thermostat breaks. The heat from the wood stove and the chimney melts the plastic on the roof. Soon, the Burlington Fire Department is on its way. This whole ramshackle operation, it might all just be on the brink of collapse. Literally. Thankfully, the Scoop shop does not burn down. Ben and Jerry survived their first summer.

But Jack, still, they gotta seriously evaluate their choices at this point. The real problem is negative cash flow. They're spending more than they're bringing in. It's as simple as that. Neither of them are any good at accounting, so they have basically no idea what's going on in their profits and loss statements. All they know is that the $12,000 they started with is now way less than $12,000. In food service, margins are already extremely narrow. In inventory costs, they add up fast. But Ben and Jerry are scooping so much ice

cream onto every cone, they're basically losing money with every transaction. This is a kid's dream, but a CFO's nightmare. But despite their egregiously generous scoops of extremely costly ice cream, Ben and Jerry refused to raise prices. In fact, Ben and Jerry actually go in the opposite direction. They start offering discounts when the temperature drops. It turns out there's a reason why Burlington

was an untapped market in ice cream. Vermont gets really cold. The average low temperature for February that year was minus one degree Fahrenheit. Nobody wants ice cream when it's that cold. Seasonality sells, off seasonality kind of sucks. So Ben and Jerry try expanding their hot food menu instead. More soups, more crepes, they even try a lasagna, but nothing takes off. And if things keep up this way, then Ben and Jerry are not going to even make it

to next summer. So they make a promise to each other. If they can survive the first year, they're going to do something epic to celebrate. Ben and Jerry know they have to make some major offseason changes. So they make a key hire, an eighth generation Vermonter, Lynn Severance, who becomes their graphic designer. Lynn studied at Parsons School of Design, but now she's back in Burlington and she's willing to work for these guys for six bucks an hour. Lynn looks at this dilapidated gas station shop and the two struggling entrepreneurs in front of her and tells them things have to change.

Not the flavors or the prices, or even that darn roof that won't stop leaking. Maybe just call a carpenter, feels like we can put that one to bed. She says that to save the company, they need to change their branding. Lynn ends up transforming the look and feel of the Ben and Jerry's brand inside the shop and out. She starts with the signage, inventing a blocky, hand-lettered font that she calls

Ben and Jerry's Chunk. This is the iconic font you see in all the Ben and Jerry's products today. Lynn created all that lettering by hand back in 1979. But Jack, what's the strategy behind this funky new font? She wants to appeal to the customers in her five-year-old, the same five-year-old who likes those big chunky bits of chocolate in their ice cream. And with this font, suddenly the brand and the product feel in sync. So Lynn gives Ben and Jerry's first scoop shop a new sign. She paints Ben and Jerry's homemade in huge chunk lettering outside the building. So big it's basically visible from New Hampshire.

And then she installs big plywood cutouts of ice cream and a coffee cup on the newly repaired roof. And these redesigns have a handmade feel that's more authentic to the Ben and Jerry's quirky brand. But ironically, it's also a sign that they're getting a little more professional. Right, like being intentional about this branding, it isn't about getting slicker and more polished.

It's about getting more accurate and authentic to what your company is and what it stands for. The branding helps Ben & Jerry's pull off a mini turnaround, and they survived that first winner. In fact, at the end of year one, they pulled in around $180,000, twice the revenue that they expected. So on their one-year anniversary, they kick off an epic event that remains a sacred Ben and Jerry's holiday still to this day. Free Cone Day. The legendary Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day.

This is how it was born. Free ice cream to anyone who shows up. You got a pulse, you're getting a pint. This is the epic celebration they promised each other they would do if they survived the first year. I mean, Jack, Ben and Jerry's launched this epic annual promotion with zero calculation of what it's gonna cost them

or the ROI on the ice cream giveaway. It is an authentic gesture of appreciation for their customers and you know what? They go for it. It is a great kickoff event for year two when sales revenue grows by 25%. Just one problem, their costs keep going up too. Ben and Jerry are working seven days a week and they're still just breaking even. If they want to make it to

year three, they're going to need more cushion, more seasonal stability, and more than just a new font. They're going to need something besides their one scoop shop to keep them afloat. Have you ever gotten a message out of the blue? Maybe you ignore them, or maybe you end up in conversation. Maybe they tell you about an amazing offer. I can really show you how to make some money. And maybe that gets you into a lot of trouble. But this isn't a story about people

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or on Apple Podcasts. on Apple Podcasts. It's a sweltering late summer day. It may be negative one in February, but it's 101 in the summer. Even the mosquitoes are too lethargic to bite. Inside the cab of his rickety ice cream truck, Ben Cohen grips the steering wheel. No power steering in this rig.

He's got to crank that thing to turn it. So Ben is schvitzing as he tries to make a left turn off of route seven. You see Ben, he's driven 20 miles from his last delivery. He's got 15 miles to the next one. And it is a long way to go just to sell five gallons of ice cream. It's September, 1979.

And a lot has happened in the four months since Free Cone Day. Ben and Jerry have added a wholesale side to their business, selling their ice cream to restaurants in big tubs. This means increasing production, which means more spending. So they take out a new business loan, seven times bigger than the last one, to open a manufacturing facility five blocks down the road from the scoop shop. And Jerry, he's overseeing ice cream production while Ben is driving around Vermont, passing tons of little towns with mom and pop grocery stores all along the way.

But unfortunately, no one there needs a whole vat of their ice cream product. If only he could offer them something a little more practical that they could actually use. Suddenly Ben has a thought so clear he almost drives off the road. A pint of ice cream. It fits in one hand. It's the perfect size for the small grocery stores along his sales route.

You're going through a breakup, going through a vat of ice cream could kill you. Going through a pint, that's satisfying. You'll live through it. Now, if you're saying, that, that seems kind of obvious Ben and Jerry, well, we're gonna have to dish out some context. Pint packages of ice cream were pretty uncommon in 1979. Back then, specialty ice cream made up just 11%

of the consumer market. Instead, the frozen food aisles mostly carried big half gallon cartons of ice cream, like Breyers, Sealtest, and Borden. These aren't top shelf brands. By contrast, Ben & Jerry's is a top shelf brand. This is primo stuff.

It costs more to make. Well, if Ben & Jerry's is going to enter the consumer space, they'll have to communicate why their pint of New York chocolate chunk cost more than that gallon of Neapolitan. And once again, their designer Lynn Severance is critical to this effort. chocolate chunk caused more than that gallowing of Neapolitan. Once again, their designer Lynn Severins is critical to this effort. They don't have a huge budget and the color printing gets expensive. So Lynn creates a pint design that's simply black, white, and red. That's it.

And this is where she gets really clever. She keeps the base of each pint the same and only varies the lids by flavor. Only customizing one part of the two-part pint container cuts down on printing costs. And Jack can we talk about the lids because the lids hold another key to Ben and Jerry's branding brilliance. If you're trying to convince some customers standing in Auntie Faye's general store why they should buy the most expensive ice cream in the store then you need a personal touch to seal the deal. So Lynn gets an idea to promote who Ben and Jerry are and what they stand for by putting their faces on the lid of every

pint. That calls for just two words, Nick. Photo shoot. Ben wears his favorite yellow pork pie hat and rocks a full untrimmed beard. Jerry has got a polo shirt left open. A lot of chest hair, by the way. Forest of chest hair. And neither of these guys have had a haircut since the Ford administration. They have the same eyeglasses, too, like those big Walter White glasses. By the time the photographer gets that perfect shot, the ice cream is dripping down the cone that Ben's holding. And this photo, the drippy ice cream photo, it'll go on every pint of Ben and Jerry's from now on. The picture

wasn't perfect, but neither is life. And that kind of message rings true to the customers. You got the co-founders names and their faces right on the package. You can't help but think, hey, these guys, they wouldn't sell me anything they don't believe in. It screams authenticity. And to drive the point home, Ben and Jerry write a little note to their customers on the pint. Nick, do a little reading for us.

This carton contains some of the finest ice cream available anywhere. We know because we're the guys who make it. We start with lots of fresh Vermont cream and the finest flavorings available. We never use any fillers or artificial ingredients of any kind. With our special modified equipment, we stir less air into the ice cream creating a denser, richer, creamier product of uncompromisingly high quality. It costs more and it's worth it. Signed Ben and Jerry. It's not a statement of

purpose, it's a declaration of deliciousness. And that strategy works. The pivot to Pints transforms Ben and Jerry's as a business. Their sales accounts jump from 35 clients to 200 clients. And by year's end, the business shows its very first annual profit around $33,000. In 1981, their shop gets some incredible PR. Ben and Jerry's is mentioned in the first sentence of a splashy Time magazine cover story about America's love affair with ice cream. The writer calls Ben and Jerry's the best ice cream in the world. Okay, this one's a little out of context. Time is saying

that everyone has their favorite and Ben and Jerry's is just one of many, but hey, it still looks good in an ad. Ben and Jerry's risky launch of premium pints has paid off in a big way. But in a shocking twist, despite all that positive momentum, one of them is about to walk away from the business entirely. It's 1982. The TV show Cheers debuts on NBC. Olivia Newton-John's Physical is top of the music charts, and Ben & Jerry's is approaching their very first million dollars in sales. Jack, I only know one of those three references, but I like all three of them.

Ben Cohen should be on top of the world. But gloomy thoughts weigh him down as he pulls his rickety truck up to Maurice's place. Maurice is a customer. We actually don't know his last name or the name of the restaurant he owns, but let's just picture a wise old man with suspenders who could school you in a game of checkers. When Ben delivers Maurice his ice cream order, he also delivers some bad news. Ben and Jerry are selling the company. Record scratch. In fact, Jerry's already gone. He moved to Arizona with his lady and sold all but 10% of his shares back to the company.

Jack, pause the pod. This is not a drill. Jerry left Ben and Jerry's in 1982. But it's not because Ben and Jerry had a fight over the pretzel to peanut ratio and the chubby hubby. No. Ben and Jerry had a fight over the pretzel-to-peanut ratio in the Chubby Hubby, no, Ben and Jerry were burnt out. They've been working 80-hour weeks for five years. And as the company grows, they have to become grownups.

Hello all-hands meetings and HR seminars. It's the kind of stuff they didn't want to do. To Ben and Jerry's horror, they've built a corporation, which to them feels like selling out. What good is making money if it's only to become the kind of corporate overlord you might have picked it against as a student? Honestly, what Ben really wants is to be back on the roof fixing that leak while Jerry is yelling out the ingredient list below and their buddy is jamming on that piano.

So Ben tries to explain this to Maurice. He says, you know what big business does Maurice, it's harmful to the environment, it's harmful to employees, it makes the world worse. What else can we do? But then that old timer, he says, Ben, if there's something you don't like about business, why don't you just do it different?

And once again, Ben has an epiphany that probably should have been obvious. Your business doesn't have to do harm if you're the one making the business decisions. Why can't we run this corporation differently for good? Ben credits this real conversation as reframing his entire attitude and his entrepreneurial purpose. Ben and Jerry's, it was founded as ice cream for the people. That doesn't have to stop just because they've grown big. Bigger companies arguably have more ability to affect change if they make real commitments.

So at the last minute, Ben pulls out of the sale and he gets Jerry on the phone right away to tell him about this epiphany he's had. Jerry is out in Arizona, so this is going to be a long distance call. But that's okay, because they start coming up with what will become Ben and Jerry's three-part mission for running a business they can be proud of. There's the product mission to make fantastic ice cream. There's their economic mission to make money so that the company can grow. And there's the social mission to make the world a better place. And the idea of having a

social mission for a for-profit company, this is highly unusual at the time. At this point, these guys are earning a million dollars in annual revenue, but they also kind of want to save the world too. Here's what this looks like in the beginning. They put a five to one cap on executive salaries, meaning their highest paid employee can make no more than five times as much as the lowest paid employee. They commit to donating 10% of their profits to progressive social causes, which will come to include everything from refugee rights to climate justice to campaign finance reform. And they commit to ethical sourcing of their ingredients. Those cashews and rainforest crunch, they're sourced from the actual

rainforest, incentivizing its preservation. Their chocolate fudge brownie flavor, it uses brownies made by a company employing formerly incarcerated people. But get ready for the best example of all. In 1984, when Ben and Jerry's needs to raise capital to finance a bigger factory, instead of taking funding from private equity, they do their first public stock offering and they make it available only to residents of the state of Vermont. They do a B and J IPO and they get so much demand in their stock that they have to turn people away.

I mean, Goldman Sachs would be drooling for that kind of IPO demand. Without compromising their values, Ben and Jerry have just raised the funds for their new factory in Waterbury, which doubles as a tourist attraction today, and Vermonters aren't just stakeholders, they're now shareholders. Plus, this new factory is going to help them scale their retail business nationally. Ben and Jerry's wholesale business had been making about $1.5 million annually in 1983.

Just two years later, that number is $4 million. It's a national brand with placement in grocery stores across the country. They're finally growing in a way that's sustainable and that they can feel good about. By 1985, Jerry and his wife moved back to Vermont from Arizona and the best friends are united together again under a roof that no longer leaks. By 1994, they go international. And by 2021, Ben and Jerry's annual revenue hits $1 billion.

But yetis, we didn't just promise you the story of Ben and Jerry's. We promised you fish food. And fish food is what you're about to get. So Jack, trigger warning if you're lactose intolerant. Everyone else, grab some more napkins. Things are about to get messy. Let's transport ourselves to 1995. Disney's Pocahontas is in theaters. O.J. is on trial.

And seven-year-old me just discovered the joy of Gap over us. And over at Ben & Jerry's, Ben Cohen is planning what might be the final flavor of his career. Don't worry besties, Ben's okay. He's actually just stepped down as CEO and he's still the chair of the Ben and Jerry's board of directors. And Jerry is vice chair, but neither is running the day-to-day operations. Which was never their strong suit anyway. Yeah, like Frank from finance, he still ain't happy about free cone debt. Instead, they're spending more time honing the company's social mission

and helping run the company's non-profit arm, the Ben and Jerry's Foundation. But still, Ben has this nagging feeling deep inside of him. This sense that he's left one huge important project undone, unfinished, one mountain still left to climb. Ben and Jerry's does not have a truly great marshmallow ice cream. They just don't have one, Jack. Ben wants a truly gooey marshmallow-y flavor. Ben also wants to create something that'll have a positive social impact. To all order here, but he wants the world's most flavorful and most ethical marshmallow ice cream. So he casts his attention to his neighbors right there in Burlington, Vermont. Jack, where exactly does Ben live?

On the other side of the woods, from a gold and platinum selling band. We're talking about the homegrown Vermont Jam Band, dominating stoner kid mixtapes and college radio in the 1990s, Fish. The band's concerts, they go on so long, they're probably still playing one right now. Fish has a devoted following in the mold of, FISH. The band's concerts, they go on so long they're probably still playing one right now. FISH has a devoted following in the mold of the Grateful Dead. People literally

follow their tours from city to city, bringing their tents and devil sticks if necessary. So Ben gets the idea he might want to team up with FISH for his last flavor design. After all, Cherry Garcia is Ben and Jerry's tribute to the dead and its perpetual bestseller. But there is one catch. You see, Fish, they are very serious about the integrity of their brand. This is the 1990s. Authenticity is in. Commercialism is lame. Selling out is not cool. 12 years into their career, Fish hasn't endorsed a single product or licensed their name to anyone yet. I mean, they wouldn't even do a collab with Fisherman's Friend or Long John Silver's or Bass Pro Shop.

Think of all the aquatic possibilities for these guys. Well, even though Fish is probably going to reject him, Ben approaches the band anyway. He wants this last flavor to be meaningful. He wants to do something that will have a social impact. Maybe some of the proceeds can benefit a cause. This marshmallow flavor, this is his Moby Dick. So with all of this at stake, Fish considers Ben's proposal to collaborate on a flavor

and they say no. Nick, I just snapped my spoon. This suspense is stressing me out. Sounds like I got to get you another spoon, but I'll get you another pint too. One sec, I just snapped my spoon. This suspense is stressing me out. Sounds like I gotta get you another spoon, but I'll get you another pint too. One sec, I got you. Hey, true crime fans. Ever dreamt of solving cases and pouring over evidence

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Ben and Jerry, our lines are open. We'll talk anytime. Have your people call our people. Now Jack, they need this collab. They need something to pull off this marshmallow ice cream. But Fish isn't interested. They better start working on counting crows puns or like, I don't know, maybe a Spice Girls sorbet because Fish is out. But Ben and Jerry don't give up. They keep the lines of communication open,

which is a pretty good business lesson in persistence. Now, when it comes to pitching new partners, it can take some time to find common ground, but business relationships, they're honestly a lot like romantic relationships. There's the courting phase, there's the trust phase, you know you gotta peacock a little bit and sometimes you know you gotta chill out. And a great place to start with a business courtship

is to connect on shared values, which is what Ben Cohen does with Phish. They keep talking as the calendar flips to 1996, they're neighbors after all, and Fish finally admits that they've been struggling to become more intentional with the band's charitable giving. Yeah, they've given to a bunch of charities supporting environmental efforts and Vermont's youth. But Fish's giving has also been a bit random.

They haven't really built a legacy. Meanwhile, Ben and Jerry's now have years of experience running a values-led company and a charitable foundation. Eventually, Ben and Jerry win the band over. The two even show up on stage for a hilariously off-key guest performance at a fish concert. Let's get Ben and Jerry out here to help us out with this one here. Somebody's jumping in the tub with your brother. Okay, so it's a fish concert, so that went on for 14 more hours. Ben and Jerry, they probably should have stuck to ice cream.

Yeah, that's why you and I have a rule. No singing on the pod. Never turns out well. You're welcome, Yetis. Being willing to humiliate themselves on stage, it strikes the right note with Fish. And so the flavor collaboration begins. And for Fish, it's the first and only time they've ever lent their name to a product. Meanwhile, for our buddies Ben and Jerry, this is a super rare case in which they give

outsiders input into their flavor making, which is sacred for these guys. Both sides, they're making a concession in order for their relationship to work. The fish food recipe unfolds like a 17 minute fish jam, multi-layered and complex. It starts with a base of creamy chocolate ice cream made with cage-free eggs, then a dash of fresh vanilla. Add a thick, gooey marshmallow swirl and Fairtrade certified chocolate fudge fish, gluten-free, and that is fish food. They pass samples back and forth

from the supplier to Ben & Jerry's HQ to the band, and they hone in on the recipe. In fact, one round of feedback said, literally, add exactly 10 more fudge fish per pint. It's actually the members of fish themselves that come up with the finishing touch. A caramel swirl that ties the whole thing together, like a harmony tying together a song.

This flavor, it is Ben and Jerry's magnum opus. Dare we say, Jack, this is their Rift. Rift, by the way, is one of fish's big songs if you don't have an obsessive Fish fan in your life. If you know, you know. But finishing the flavor? That's like only part of the deal, right, Jack? Fish also creates a nonprofit called the Water Wheel Foundation.

And its mission is to help clean up Vermont's Lake Champlain. The foundation is to be funded by the royalties that they receive from fish food ice cream. This isn't selling out. Jack, this is buying in. And it's buying in to a good cause. On March 18th, 1997, Ben's actual birthday and four days after Jerry's birthday, they put on a sold out concert in Burlington. This was a launch party for both water wheel

and fish food ice cream. It's a day that goes down in Vermont history lore. Because Ben and Jerry love just giving stuff out for free, every concert goer leaves with their own free sample of the new flavor. Some lucky folks, they're even winning full pints. And Ben and Jerry, they themselves introduced the entire show. Fish food is a huge hit with fish fans, of course, but its popularity immediately breaks way beyond the tie-dye circuit. The flavor rockets into the top 10 list of flavors by popularity, which is tallied by Ben & Jerry's itself.

And you'll still find fish food in that top 10 list today. On the flavor's 25th anniversary in 2022, Waterwheel announced they'd raised over $9 million for the cleanup of Lake Champlain and other environmental causes. Not too shabby for a pint of marshmallow ice cream. So that's the end of the fish food story. But it's not the end of Ben and Jerry's. The two co-founders and lifelong best friends remained on the company's board until it was

sold to Unilever in the year 2000 for a brain-freezing $326 million. Even though they sold the company, Ben and Jerry managed to structure a deal that is one of the wildest things Jack and I have ever seen. Usually, when one company acquires another, the acquiring company gets to set the rules. Okay, but that's not the case for our buddies, Ben and Jerry is. No, it's not. The deal established a board that gives Ben and Jerry oversight on everything from setting livable wages

to overseeing the social mission, to maintaining the recipes as they originally intended. Ben and Jerry, they sold for 326 million, but they didn't lose control of their baby. So Jack, now that we've heard the story of Ben and Jerry's Fish Food, the Vermontiest of all collabs, what is your takeaway? The strongest foundation of a business is complementary co-founders. Co-foundership is a beautiful thing. Nick and I have been running this company for 12 years together. And the reason it's so strong is that we trust each other,

and we have fun together, but also we're not identical. We have different strengths that happen to overlap with the other just the right amount, like two circles in a Venn diagram. We were also freshman year roommates, and that's where our trust began. When people know each other, when they're friends first, it really sets you up for success as co-founders later in life. That's right, Nick. Complimentary co-founders. All right, Nick, it's your turn. What's your takeaway on Ben and Jerry's and Fish Food? Just make it up. Make it up. Remember, Ben and Jerry, they basically had no idea what they were doing

when it came to, you know, running an actual business. But they still became a billion dollar company and more importantly, one of the most successful Vermont exports of all time. Yeah, and we export snowboards and maple syrup. So that's saying something. Well, they didn't just let that lack of knowledge or expertise hold them back.

They just made it up. This story today was actually extremely personal for Jack and me for a whole bunch of reasons, beginning with the fact that we met in the state of Vermont. But actually one of Jack's, my favorite interviews is with Ben and Jerry. It was on another great Wandery podcast called How I Built This with Guy Raz.

And when Ben and Jerry are describing how they built out their business plan to get that first bank loan, they admit something fascinating. When they ran the numbers, they said they were projected to lose money. So instead, they changed the numbers. They just made the numbers up. Of course, there's a limit on how and what you can make up. Like, don't lie or commit fraud, of course. Good point, Jack. But for forward-looking financial projections,

you have a lot of freedom. To get the bankers to finance you, you have to show confidence, especially for predicted sales numbers. The best in the business, just make it up. Yeah, we both worked in finance and we can tell you, when it comes to financials, yeah, you chain some things around in the Excel sheet and you just make up the projections.

It's refreshing to know that these incredibly successful business people started with a situation where they were so clueless, they just made it up. And guess what? It worked out and the bankers got their money back too. Okay before we go, it's time for our favorite part of the show, the best facts yet. The tidbits and factoids that we just couldn't fit into the show, but we couldn't leave you without. Nick, something I haven't told you.

Remember the Ben and Jerry's IPO, which only Vermonters could participate in? Oh, totally. The ice cream IPO. I told my parents about this last weekend. They got in on that IPO. What? They were early investors? They bought $3,000 in Ben and Jerry's, which blew up to like 18 grand.

And that was the down payment on the house that I grew up in. So you grew up on B and J money, man? It was chunky monkey money. And my parents didn't tell me until this past weekend. I can't believe they didn't have the stock certificate framed up on a plaque downstairs, man. All right, this one's going to shock you. Nick, did you know that the marshmallow in fish food isn't marshmallow?

It's actually marshmallow flavored nougat. Okay, now I feel like we need a fact check midway through our story, Jack. Fish food may be an all-star flavor, but if you visit the Ben and Jerry's factory in Waterbury, Vermont, you can see all the flavors that didn't quite make it in the Ben and Jerry's flavor graveyard.

You can see the tombstones dedicated to the dearly depinted. Jack, a moment of silence for the dastardly mash, the Georgia peach, and who could forget 2008's economic crunch. Yeah, that came out too soon. But Jack, how they did not sprinkle maple syrup on this pint for fish, I have no idea.

Come to think of it, I can't think of any Ben and Jerry's flavors that have maple syrup. What the heck? Oh, and finally, did you know Ben and Jerry invented cookie dough ice cream? It's true. Back when they carried both baked goods and homemade ice cream in their scoop shop, they got the idea

to toss some of their unbaked dough into the ice cream. And there you go, cookie dough ice cream. Jerry credits this as the innovation that really put Ben and Jerry's on the map. Yeah, there was the slight risk of salmonella, but hey, just make it up. And that, my friends, is why Ben and Jerry's fish food is the best idea yet. Coming up on the next episode of the best idea yet, it became the Silicon Valley uniform and it's made by a corporation that's so ethical, it makes Ben & Jerry's look like Exxon Mobil.

The next episode of the best idea yet is the Patagonia Fleece. Follow the best idea yet on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of the best idea yet early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. The Best Idea Yet is a production of Wondery hosted by me, Nick Martel and me, Jack Kraviche Kramer. Hey, if you have a product you're obsessed with, but you wish you knew the backstory, drop us a comment.

We'll look into it for you. Oh, and don't forget to rate and review the podcast. Our senior producers are Matt Beagle and Chris Gaultier. Peter Arcuni is our additional senior producer. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan and Taylor Sniffin is our managing producer. Our associate producer and researcher is H. Conley. This episode was written and produced by Katie Clark Gray. We use many sources in our research including...

Ben and Jerry's The Inside Scoop How Two Real Guys Built a Business with a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor by Fred Chico Lager and Ben and Jerry's Double Tip by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield Sound Design and Mixing by CJ Drummler. Fact checking by Molly Artwick. Music supervision by Scott Velazquez and Jolina Garcia for Freesawn Sync. Our theme song is Got That Feeling Again by Blac-a-Lac.

Executive producers for Nick and Jack Studios are me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Ravitchi Kramer. Executive producers for Wondery are Dave Easton, Jenny Lauer Beckman, Aaron O'Flaherty, and Marshall Lewy. Wondery. Wondery. Wondery. What's up, everybody? It's Jason Kelsey, and I'm here with my slightly famous little brother, Travis, AKA Big Yeti Kelsey.

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