Ben & Jerry's: The Inside Scoop: How Two Real Guys Built a Business with a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor

by Fred Lager

Book Overview

"Deftly and compassionately captures Ben's] genius in all its entrepreneurial splendor...This tale will keep you entertained."--New York Times Book Review.

A former CEO of Ben & Jerry's tells how two '60s holdovers built a single ice cream store into one of America's hottest companies. From modest beginnings--opening their first ice cream shop in a renovated gas station--to entrepreneurial challenges, including their clash with H agen-Dazs,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517883708
• ISBN13: 9780517883709
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Crown Currency
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

All I eat is Ben and Jerry's now

It's a hippie story. Rarely do you ever read a book about a company that makes you change your buying habits. For some reason this was one of those books to me. The story is pure Americana - gutsy, clumsy, real. Not the smoothest flowing narrative but if you like their story it flows none the less.

Good view of the how Ben and Jerry's developed

A good recount of how the company got going, but the last few chapters dragged.There are things to learn about how Ben and Jerry developed their company:1)They are geniuses at this. They actually figured out mass production without knowing what they were doing, they figured out marketing from scratch, they encountered financing and survived.2)They had a near masochistic willingness to work. Boy did these guys work hard (it would kill me to do what they did, even if I had the will to do it).3)They could adapt incredibly.4) and finally: There are pitfalls and prices to trying to make social profits and business profits at the same time and to not planning your company to be as big as it already is.You can learn about businesses in their growth phase from this book. You can learn about making sure a company has sufficient controls in place for its size. You may be able to learn whether you have what it takes to be an entrepeneur.The first 3/4th of the book were fun to read but for some reason the last couple of chapters, when Ben and Jerry were playing less of a part in the business, were slow and boring (I don't exactly know why but I know they dragged).

The Inside Scoop is just that !

It's a chronicle of the intriguing journey of junior high friends who split the $5 cost of a home study course in making homemade ice cream and turn it into a $237 million company (1999 sales). Ben & Jerry's antics of giving away ice cream so they can 'get the ice cream into people's mouths so they will buy it,' take on some unusual situations. Free cones are offered to folks who register to vote, donate books to Head Start, or send postcards to elected officials for a variety of causes, and to celebrate at Fall Down Festivals with block long stilt walking races, music and other amusements. Solar-powered mobiles are used to transport the ice cream and a show on the road. They still sponsor customer appreciation day once a year when free cones are dipped all day.It's hard to resist a bowl or cone of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Cherry Garcia as you read this humorous show and tell of two guys who really want (and do) make a difference. You'll be ready to book a snow shoe tour of the Vermont plant by the time you finish reading about these guys' mission. Their values-led business (in addition to having fun) is to produce the best ice cream from Vermont dairy products, to increase the value of the of the company for the stockholders and create career opportunities and financial rewards for employees, and to improve the quality of life for the community. (They donate 7.5% of pretax profits to Ben & Jerry's Foundation that supports a variety of causes that improve the quality of life for children.)I'm using this book as a project for an organizational communications course and enjoyed the reading (and eating) more than I ever expected. It was the most fun I've had doing homework!

the subtitle says it all

This was a really good book that shows "How Two Real Guys Built a Business With a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor." This should be required reading for MBA's along with Hawkin's Growing a Business.

Hope for the Little Guy

Although Ben & Jerry's: The Inside Scoop was a little long-winded at times, I thought it was a good easy-to-read book for non-business majors wanting to start a business. Lager's style of writing makes Ben & Jerry seem like two regular guys up the street who had a dream and went after it with all the gusto they could muster. The book would not serve as a business plan protocol necessarily, however, it does display the true entrepeneriual spirit needed in order to make a business successful. Lager does a wonderful job of showing how Ben & Jerry fed off of each other and when one door closed in their face, they found another way in through a different door or window -- exactly what has to be done if you are going to grow a successful business.Lager captured the realism of the trials and tribulations experienced by most individuals who begin their own business. I would recommend this book to anyone who was thinking of beginning his/her own business because it gives a look at the real side of starting your own business by making Ben & Jerry two real guys who simply wanted to start their own business so they did not have to work from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for someone else. By putting all the business jargon aside, I felt this was a worthwhile read for someone who needs the reassurance that anyone can start a business and this is how Ben & Jerry started theirs.