We Did it! Ben and Jerry’s to Release a Dairy-Free Ice Cream!

Okay, so clearly it wasn’t just us. Sure, we’d love to stand up and take the credit (with all the pursuant adulation that would follow) for Ben and Jerry’s announcement that they’ll be releasing a totally dairy-free ice cream – but it wasn’t just our doing. Consumer voices have been heard!

We’re totally consumers too though, so can we still take all the credit?!

Chrisicisms

Very little is known about the new product, including any hilariously punny name ideas or even what the flavor will be. The plan is to start with either a coconut or almond base and then build some magic from there in order to make a spring 2016 debut. The company is hoping to provide an alternative to those who can’t (or choose not to) eat dairy, which will put their new offering firmly within an exploding market.

I scream, you scream, we all scream, dairy-free ice cream!

Vegan Nutritionista

Co-Founder Jerry Greenfield told Metro.co.uk, “In the U.S. there are (dairy free) alternatives from smaller companies but Ben & Jerry’s will be first mainstream company that will do that and will also do it in a really delicious way.”

With the company making headlines recently for their new ice cream flavor and climate change campaign, this new announcement continues to put them one step further on the path to being a more environmentally conscious company (and a far more meaningful step, if we’re being perfectly honest, than creating a new ice cream in the name of climate change). While they’re still obviously offering the full dairy ice cream that made them famous, with no intentions to stop, they’re taking the kind of steps that other large scale food purveyors will be watching. Once it debuts, the success of this new flavor will tell companies loud and clear that we want sustainable food options that don’t rely on animals for their production.

If you build it, they will come…

Ben and Jerry’s clearly listened to consumer demand and were able to see that trends are shifting more and more heavily in favor of plant-based options every day. Now, it’s up to us to prove their decision to be the right one if we’d like to see more companies follow their lead. If an ice cream manufacturer whose very existence relies on dairy can offer up something dairy-free, other manufacturers can too. We just have to show them that they should.

Lead image source: Farm USA