A Tribute to a Mini Ben & Jerry's Icecream

Background: I wrote this one a while back, regarding a very mini Ben & Jerry's icecream I found at a local Dollar Tree store

It was in the frozen desserts sections of a Dollar Tree store in Lenexa, Kansas that I found it. Through that door, it was staring back a me at the inflationary-adjusted price of $1.25. I’d read about the $1.25 price hike, but here it was, for real. It almost makes you wonder if it would have made more sense to name the company after a higher denomination bill due to inflation, but I digress, so now back to the desserts.

Anyways, so a mini image of Stephen Colbert was sitting on that shelf staring back at me—from a very mini container of Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream.

Above:  The Mini Ben & Jerry's Container in Question

It was a flavor born out of The Colbert Report (pronounced with the fake French pronunciation of re-pour, for those not familiar with the show), a show that has been history for quite some time now. However, Stephen Colbert continues on, or wait, was continuing on until there was that whole writer’s strike thing. You know, it has something to do with writers wanting residuals on shows that are continuing to air and not wanting to be replaced by AI, among other issues.

Next to Colbert’s photo, the serving size of “4 ounces (120mL)” stared back at me. When I flipped the container around to the back, the nutritional information listed the serving size as simply, “1 container” and the calories as 260. Perhaps unsurprisingly for Ben & Jerry’s icecream, the saturated fat section is listed as 10g, which works out to 50% of your daily allowance.  Likewise, I applaud Ben & Jerry’s for cramming so much saturated fat into such a small package. I have come to expect no less from them, and yet again I was not disappointed in this regard. Well played gentlemen, gentlewomen, and gentlefolk of the ice-cream guild.

On another note, the amount of wasted resources involved in producing such a small product is difficult for me to comprehend, although it is likely also astounding. Generally, the smaller the container a product comes in, the worse it is for the environment.

Moreover, how did we even get to where Ben & Jerry’s is producing a 4 oz. container of Americone Dream that sells for $1.25? We are only in this situation now because clearly people can’t afford the regular-size Ben & Jerry’s icecream, which comes in a 16 oz. container. The “normal sized” Ben & Jerry’s has always been too small, but now we have compounded the problem by shrinking the container down even further. Also, the last price I found locally for this size container retailed for around $6, which is actually more expensive than just buying four 4 oz. containers at Dollar Tree. This just encourages people to be more wasteful by buying more smaller containers, as it’s actually cheaper to do so.

My questions now is, “How could Ben & Jerry let something like this happen?” Oh yeah, that’s right. Ben & Jerry don’t own Ben & Jerry’s anymore. Ben & Jerry’s is now a subsidiary of Unilever. As a result of this, allow me to rephrase the question. How could Unilever let Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream shrink further? Ah, yes, I don’t think Unilever really cares what size the package of ice-cream is. I eagerly await the introduction of the 2 oz. container of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream as a result.

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Tonight, I ate the entirety of my 4 oz. container of Americone Dream. It was just as decadent, delicious, and sweet as the last time I had it, which was then in the normal-sized Ben & Jerry’s container. It took me a couple of minutes to eat the contents of the entire container, although it still wasn’t entirely guilt-free. After finishing it, I rinsed the container and lid out and then brought it to my office and the placed it on my bamboo memory shelf.

The empty mini container of Americone Dream now sits behind my old Fringe buttons, near my KU school of Journalism acrylic plaque, and next to my penguin Christmas tree ornament that I received as I gift long ago. I think it’s a fitting spot for it. In a way, like these other mementos, it too is stuck in the past, hearkening back to events long ago completed, evoking memories of people long lost to past lives, & in this case, to that sweet flavor that brought you home again.