Rhino Foods: The People Behind Those Delicious Chunks of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Ben & Jerry’s has a long tradition of working with like-minded partners to perfect our euphoric flavors. From the family farms and cooperatives where we source our ingredients, to socially-responsible brownie-makers at Greyston Bakery, we find that many hands make light work and delicious ice cream. Our relationship with Rhino Foods, the makers of the beloved cookie dough found in our ice cream, is no exception.

Way back when, Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Guru and “Primal Ice Cream Therapist” Peter Lind joined forces with former international hockey star and University of Vermont hockey coach Ted Castle, and his small ice cream business, to create the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough found in the flavor today. We asked Rhino Foods to make a cookie dough that could hold up in freezing, ice cream temperatures and still be the sticky, smooshy, instantly identifiable cookie dough that we all love.

Well, it wasn’t easy, but through hard work and ingenuity, Rhino nailed it and has been providing our cookie dough since 1991. They’ve since gone on to produce cookie dough and baked pieces—or ‘chunks’ as we like to call them—for most of the ice cream world.

Sharing Ben & Jerry’s mission to create linked prosperity for everyone connected to our business, Rhino uses its success to lift others and credits much of its success to its employees. Ted Castle’s history as an athletic coach instilled in him a passion for getting the very best from everyone around him.

Rhino believes that a healthy, harmonious, stable workplace starts in the homes and communities of its employees. They began developing programs that not only improved their employees’ on-the-job skills, but improved their ability to be happy, successful and secure at home.

Rhino Foods has become a business leader and a resource for other companies through decades of work on these issues.

Some of the programs that Rhino has pioneered include:

• Working Bridges: Immediate loans, assistance, and support for life’s emergencies.
• Open Book Management: Employees are given exposure to the financial management of the company to improve their business acumen and increase cooperation.
• Employee Exchange: Seasonal lay-offs are avoided by partnering with other companies to transfer employees during slow times, while helping employees gain new skills.
• Wellness: A variety of activities and opportunities have helped instill a culture of health and preventative body maintenance that ripples out into the community.

Ben & Jerry’s relationship with Rhino Foods was forged in cookie dough, but it’s sharing values and a passion for linked prosperity that makes us an even better team.

Rhino Foods has recently become a certified B Corporation, joining Ben & Jerry’s and over a 1000 companies worldwide in the unified goal to use business as a force for good for people and the planet.

Next time you dig into a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, think of the good those chunks of cookie dough are doing.