Up for auction "Ben & Jerry's" Ben Cohen Hand Signed Popcorn Bag. 

ES-6895E

Bennett Cohen (born March 18, 1951) is an American businessman, activist, and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of the ice cream company Ben & Jerry's. Cohen was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in the town of Merrick, New York, on Long Island by Jewish parents Frances and Irving. He spent at least one summer at Buck's Rock Performing and Creative Arts Camp in New Milford, Connecticut Cohen first met and befriended his future business partner Jerry Greenfield in a seventh grade gym class in 1963. They continued on to Sanford H. Calhoun High School. In his senior year, Cohen found work as an ice cream man before leaving to attend Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Over the next decade, Cohen pursued his interest in pottery and dropped out of college after his sophomore year. He also worked as a McDonald's cashier, Pinkerton guard, deliverer of pottery wheels, mop-boy at Jamesway and Friendly's, assistant superintendent, ER clerk, and taxi driver, before settling on work as a craft teacher at a private school for emotionally-disturbed adolescents. While teaching at the Highland Community School, Cohen began experimenting with making his own ice cream. In 1977, Cohen decided to go into business with his old friend Jerry Greenfield, and in May of the next year, the two men opened Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream Parlor in Burlington, Vermont. They initially intended to start a bagel business, but found the equipment costs prohibitive and switched to ice cream instead. They chose Burlington as a location because it was a prominent college town which, at the time, had no ice cream shop. Ben & Jerry's distinctive style of ice cream was developed to compensate for Cohen's anosmia, as he kept adding larger and larger chunks to the ice cream to satisfy his need for texture in food. Ben & Jerry's became popular in Burlington. Their main competition was two other ice cream companies, Dreyers and Haagen Daaz. Cohen resigned as Chief Executive Officer of Ben & Jerry's in 1996.