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Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Haagen-Dazs ice cream are harmoniously displayed together on the freezer shelves of a supermarket in Brooklyn, New York.
AMANDA ALONZIK/NPR
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AMANDA ALONZIK/NPR
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Haagen-Dazs ice cream are harmoniously displayed together on the freezer shelves of a supermarket in Brooklyn, New York.
AMANDA ALONZIK/NPR
Look in any supermarket’s ice cream freezer and you’ll discover a secret. There are the typical brands in big containers: Breyers, Turkey Hill and Edy’s. There are also brands that specialize in Italian-style gelato, low-fat gelato and vegan gelato. And then there are the fancy pints: Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs, mostly.
Häagen-Dazs has smooth flavors like vanilla, chocolate, and pistachio. Ben & Jerry’s specializes in chunky flavors: Cherry Garcia, The Tonight Dough, Chunky Monkey, and more. The two companies have almost never ventured into each other’s territory. Why?
They may be experiencing the same thing as natural competition—they specialize in what they are best suited to. But as Christopher Sullivan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison suspects, the two companies There may be a so-called “tacit collusion” going on. Both sides tacitly agreed…to stick to their territory.
We try to get to the heart of the conspiracy and how consumers are ultimately losing out in this cold war.
Today’s show was produced by Willa Rubin and Alyssa Jeong Perry. It was designed by Josh Newell and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Edited by Jess Jiang.
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