Lifestyle: An Afternoon At Ben & Jerry's HQ In London

Hi ladies, not another lifestyle post I can here you say. Well, today’s post will bring you the latest news from the Ben & Jerry’s HQ and a delicious giveaway, too!

This week, I was kindly invited by the team to join them for a very special event at their fancy Covent Garden office. The event covered the finale of the annual sustainable business competition Join Our Core, a talk with Mr Jerry himself and a never ending supply of Ben & Jerry’s latest ice cream flavours.

Ben & Jerry’s are known for their puns and inventive product names, so the event kicked off with an unusual introduction round. We all had to come up with a nickname relating to ice cream or working in a barn. Soon the creative energies filled the room and we had fantastic names such as The Cookie Slayer or Scoopy Doo floating around. I struggled a bit with mine. For a long time I was stuck with my old nickname from language school - Caramel – and nothing creative came to my mind because all my attention went straight to the countless ice cream tubs brought in.

The new cookie core edition includes the following flavours:

(pic 1 right) What A Lotta Chocolate – a very rich, dark chocolate ice cream with a core of crushed chunks of chocolate cookie and bits and pieces of cookie floating around. I loved the taste of the ice cream, as it was less sweet and tasted of the typical strong cocoa flavour. There were little chunks of cookie and chocolate in the ice cream. The middle was made of a massive core of chocolate cookie. Loved it! I could have eaten an entire tub without getting sick.

(pic 1 left) Speculoos? Specu-love – Hands up if Cookie Dough is your favourite flavour. I can tell you now that you’ll love this one even more. This flavour is dedicated to Spekulatius (the German spiced almond biscuit you get at Christmas). The caramel ice cream has a crumbled biscuit core with extra bits of caramelised cookies. The composition of sweet caramelised biscuit with cinnamon and spice is insane! I first thought it was an extended version of Cookie Dough and I could have easily eaten an entire tub of this. Though it contains Spekulatius, it didn’t taste christmassy at all. The ice cream was perfectly balanced in flavour and the ratio of core and chunks excellent. My favourite! 

(pic 2) Utter Peanut Butter Clutter- Thanks to Reese’s, peanut butter products are the product of the moment. Literally everything these days features the delicious butter. It goes without saying that Ben & Jerry’s have dedicated an entire tub with peanut butter ice cream and a core of crunchy peanut butter to the range. The ice cream is very sweet and rich in flavour which is nice at the beginning but after a few scoops you may find yourself struggling. 

When everyone fell into a food coma, the American PR team gave a brief talk on the history of the brand which was highly interesting. Ben & Jerry’s started out as a small business in one of the coldest places on earth – Vermont. Would you have ever imagined that this business would soon flourish into one of the biggest and most beloved ice cream brands in the world in such a place? See me neither! They also have a “graveyard” dedicated to their failure products which I found hilarious and just highlights again the original character of the brand.

Ben & Jerry’s pride themselves to be a business that gives back to its community and the talk lead over to the Join Our Core finale, an annual sustainable business competition. This year’s finalist were We walk the Line (a business model similar to the Big Issue but with coffee) and Gravity Light (a light source that gains its energy from gravity, how cool is that?!?).

For the second half, Mr Jerry Greenfield joined us and we got involved in a scooping competition. The aim was to create as many perfect scoops as possible in five minutes, so even more ice cream was brought to the tables! It was so much fun and a big mess! I competed against someone who had worked at an ice cream parlour over the last summer and whilst he scooped like a world record breaker I could only just stare and be completely gobsmacked. It goes without saying that I didn't win this competition but I managed one cup with three tiny half rounded scoops. Of course we couldn’t let the ice cream go to waste (I somehow still managed to stand next to Jerry yeah!).  

My pictures can’t really do justice of the fun and wonderful afternoon that I had at the Ben & Jerry’s HQ. Thank you a million times for having me. The team is absolutely amazing and super friendly. I can’t wait what they have in store next (of course, I’ll be there and report for you). Now, let’s come to the best part. 

Competition 

I’ve got this very exclusive Ben & Jerry’s freezer box which is perfect to take to the beach or to your next picnic. It is filled with some amazing goodies including a voucher for a Ben & Jerry’s tub of your choice. If you’d like to get your hands on this fabulous prize send me a picture on Twitter with the #SLxBJ showing me how you enjoy your Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The most fun and creative will win! 

T&C's

• One Ben & Jerry's freezer bag filled with goodies will be up for grabs in this competition. 
• This is a UK only competition.
• You can enter by sending me a picture of how you enjoy your Ben & Jerry's ice cream this summer via Twitter with the #SLxBJ. 
• The competition will run from  12/06/2015 till 19/06/2015. There will be one winner. 
• The most creative entry will win and my partner Alex will help me to choose the winner. 
• The winner will be informed via Twitter/email on Sunday 21/06/2015 after the competition has closed. 
• The winner has 48h to respond before a runner up will be selected. 
• The freezer bag and goodies were kindly supplied by Ben & Jerry's UK as a blog competition prize for Style Lingua. 
• The prize will be sent as soon as the details have been provided by the winner. The prize will be sent with Royal Mail. 

Good luck everyone! Till next time,

xx Caz xx

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