The Delicious Story of How Ben & Jerry's Started Making Ice Cream

Today, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are famously known as the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s, an American ice cream company known for its novelty ice creams. But it wasn’t always this way. They, too, had their struggles and failures before the birth of their company.

The Beginnings of Ben & Jerry

Ben Cohen (pictured, right) was born on March 18, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York to Frances and Irving Cohen. Jerry Greenfield (pictured, left) was born on March 14, 1951 inBrooklyn, New York to a stockbroker. In 1963, Ben and Jerry met in a gym class at Merrick Avenue Junior High School. Their bond formed when they both found that they hated running in gym class, yet lovedfood. It was from here that their friendship formed until they graduated from Calhoun High School and went to separate colleges.

Ben worked as an ice cream man before he attended Colgate Universityin upstate New York. Over the next eleven years, Ben decided to pursue his interest in pottery while doing a mixture of other things. For instance, he attended the “University Without Walls” program at Skidmore, the New School and NYU. He also held a series of odd jobs such as working as a cashier at McDonald’s, a Pinkerton guard, mopper at Jamesway anfd Friendly’s, pottery wheel deliverer, assistant superintendent, ER clerk and taxi driver. He then decided to become a craft teacher at a school for emotionally disturbed teenagers. At the Highland Community School, he then became