“If you want to be in the food industry, you need to have a responsibility for your impact on the world,” explained Matthew McCarthy. “That is Unilever’s perspective. Whether you’re a smaller brand like Sir Kensington’s or an icon like Hellmann’s, it’s on you.”
McCarthy, formerly the Vice President of Unilever Foods North America, was recently appointed as the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s , effective as of July 1. The 21-year veteran of the food giant embodies Unilever’s recent track record of corporate responsibility and has championed various strategy pivots that have both helped its brands remain appealing to increasingly mindful consumers, as well as raised the bar for other food giants to potentially follow.
In his new role leading Ben & Jerry’s, a brand already famed for its activism, McCarthy has stated that he aims to “double its social impact.” While ice cream lovers universal anxiously await his next bold moves for the beloved brand, he assumedly will expand on emergent themes from his body of values-led work at Unilever. Here are some of his key initiatives that have shaped Unilever’s commitment to bettering the food ecosystem:
1. Making America’s favorite condiment go cage-free
Despite recent polarizing articles and a national identity steeped in ketchup, mayonnaise continues to be America’s most purchased condiment. At the forefront of this high selling pack of condiments is Unilever’s Hellmann’s. And as a condiment composed of an egg yolk emulsion, naturally its scaled production relied on a large ecosystem of animal agriculture.
In 2010, Hellman’s stated its commitment to using only certified cage-free eggs by 2020, at a time when only 2% of egg-laying hens were cage-free. As a best selling condiment brand that uses over 331 million eggs per year, this meant that this goal was made before there was an adequate volume of cage-free eggs available for production.
“We committed to going cage-free with Hellman’s. We had no idea how the heck to do that,” explained McCarthy. “But we worked with our suppliers to make a completely new supply chain to make that possible.”
Leading this initiative, McCarthy successfully helped to transition the brand to 100% cage-free eggs by 2017, three years ahead of its initial goal schedule. “We have a lot of impact, so when we make changes it really impacts the market,” he added.
2. Using big company resources to support urban, local farmers
“We don’t talk about Growing Roots as a brand. We talk about it as an urban farming program,” explained McCarthy. “We worked with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Building Healthy Communities (BHC) initiative to help build six urban farms.”
Launched at Expo West 2018, Unilever’s new plant-based snack brand aims to build consumer empathy for local farmers and features global flavors like Thai Green Curry and Chipotle Mole. The snack brand is committing 50% of its profits to support urban farming on its mission to alleviate the funding roadblock that has prevented the development of more urban farming projects.
McCarthy’s initiative uses Unilever’s many resources, including its teams, supply chain and marketing expertise, to build a unique self-sustaining business model that concurrently aids six of New York’s food swamps, or areas with many food options but few nutritious ones.
3. Encouraging consumers to buy more sustainably via artisanal products
“One of the biggest changes that we have seen in our consumer-focused work is seeing how much consumers’ interest in food has skyrocketed in the last few years,” explained McCarthy. “Everyone’s interest in food is the highest it’s ever been in the U.S. Food is no longer the space of fancy restaurants and food trucks!”
As Unilever and McCarthy’s team noticed the increasing food quality demanded by consumers, it became evident that the company’s staple condiment brand portfolio had room to grow. Concurrent to this opportunity to diversify was McCarthy’s continued interest in introducing sustainable ingredients and products to markets.
Coupling these desires, Unilever acquired artisanal condiment brand Sir Kensington’s in 2017. Featuring organic ingredients, cage-free eggs and sustainably-sourced ingredients, the brand’s high quality naturally disrupted the traditional state of the condiment aisle in a way that encourages consumers to buy more sustainably.
“The condiment aisle hasn’t seen a lot of shake-em-up things recently. When a lot of people imagine cutting-edge foods, they often don’t think about condiments. Sir Kensington’s is bringing a new mindset to familiar and longstanding foods and then bringing them to a new level… They are ahead of other condiment companies and in a very forward position in both sustainability and culinary focus.”
– Matthew McCarthy, CEO of Ben & Jerry’s
So what is next for Ben & Jerry’s under McCarthy’s leadership? Likely a lot more of the aforementioned mission-driven work, if only as a means to increase consumer trust in the major food brand:
“People care about their food. They don’t trust where their food comes from and they want more trust, and that lack of trust is warranted given how their choices shape our food systems… Big food companies need to work with the people they serve to create solutions to these challenges.”
