How Much is Jerry Greenfield Worth? Jerry Greenfield's Total Wealth - Is the Star a Billionaire? Net Worth 2026: Career Earnings & Assets

As one of the most talked-about figures, Jerry Greenfield has built a significant fortune. In this article, we dive deep into the assets and career highlights.

What Is Jerry Greenfield's Net Worth?

In 1980, Greenfield and Cohen began selling pints of their ice cream in grocery stores, and by 1987, the company was worth $30 million. The first franchised Ben & Jerry's shop opened in 1981 in Shelburne, Vermont, and today there are 615 Ben & Jerry's locations.

Jerry Greenfield is an American businessman, activist, and entrepreneur who has a net worth of $100 million. Jerry Greenfield earned his fortune as the co-founder of the Vermont-based ice cream company Ben & Jerry's. He co-founded the business with his best friend since seventh grade,Ben Cohen. The founders, who were born four days apart from each other in 1951, started Ben & Jerry's with $8,000 in savings and a $4,000 bank loan. After opening their first shop in the late '70s, today Ben & Jerry's is sold in more than 40 countries.Ben & Jerry's earns roughly $1 billion annually. In 2000, the company was purchased by the food giant Unilever for $326 million. At that point, annual earnings were $237 million.

In 1995, Greenfield and Cohen created the Ben & Jerry's Foundation, a social justice organization that was established to "fund organizations here in Vermont and around the country that are working for progressive social change." In 1988, Ben and Jerry were named U.S. Small Business Persons of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The duo has published the books "Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book" (1987) and "Ben & Jerry's Double Dip: How to Run a Values Led Business and Make Money Too" (1997).

For the next 25 years, Ben & Jerry both received a salary from Unilever, but neither was involved in the operations or management of the brand they founded. In September 2025, Jerry announced his resignation from the company, citing a complete breakdown in the values-driven independence they were promised when they sold the business in 2000.

Greenfield and Cohen initially wanted to open a bagel shop, but after realizing how expensive the equipment was, they took an ice cream-making course at Pennsylvania State University that cost $5. They opened Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream Parlor in May 1978, and their first location was in the college town of Burlington, Vermont, which didn't have an ice cream shop. Ben and Jerry each put in $4,000 to start the business, and they got a $4,000 bank loan as well.

Jerry Greenfield was born on March 14, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York. He is from a Jewish family, and he was raised on Long Island. Jerry met Ben Cohen in a middle school gym class in 1963, and they both attended Sanford H. Calhoun High School. After graduating from high school, Greenfield enrolled at Ohio's Oberlin College, where he studied a pre-med curriculum and worked in the cafeteria as an ice cream scooper. He graduated in 1973 but didn't get into medical school, so he returned to New York and moved in with Cohen. Jerry took a job as a lab technician, and in 1974, he moved to North Carolina with his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Skarie, after failing to get into medical school again.

Cohen suffers from anosmia, which limits his taste and smell, and this led to the signature chunks Ben and Jerry's ice cream is known for. He told "Delish" in 2021, "When Jerry and I first started creating the flavors [in the 1970s], he'd give me something to taste. He'd say, 'Well, how do you like it?' I said, 'It's good. But I can't tell what flavor it is.' So he would just keep on adding more flavoring until I could guess."

The company is known for flavors such asStephen Colbert'sAmeriCone Dream, Half Baked, Phish Food, Chunky Monkey, and Cherry Garcia, and they use ingredients that are Fairtrade certified, non-GMO, and from Certified Humane cage-free farms. Since Unilever bought Ben & Jerry's in 2000, Greenfield and Cohen have not been involved in the management or operations of the company. In an interview with "The Boston Phoenix," Jerry stated, "We have no responsibility, no authority, and very little influence….It's very different. We're somewhat goodwill ambassadors for the company, which I like, because — and I think this is true for Ben — we both want to help promote the values of the company, not simply to sell more ice cream, but the other things that the company stands for and works for."

Ultimately, Jerry Greenfield's financial journey is a testament to their success.

Disclaimer: All net worth figures are estimates based on public data.