Ben and Jerry’s over Breyers

Published 5 years ago -


Meg Brennan

Staff Writer

If you know anything about me, I’m a bit of an ice cream enthusiast – it’s my dessert of choice, and if an opportunity arises to get a scoop, I’m taking it.

Since I love ice cream so much, I’ve tried a multitude of brands to determine which kind of ice cream provides the overall best eating experience. I have come to the well-educated conclusion that Ben & Jerry’s is the best. They have an excellent variety of flavors (Half Baked tops my list) and the overall quality of the ice cream is excellent. They’re not called a “premium” ice cream for nothing – Ben & Jerry’s truly is that good. You can therefore imagine how thrilled I was to go to a college that provides a Ben & Jerry’s selection within one of their campus dining options.

My Chuck’s points for the most part have become my Ben & Jerry’s fund, and I don’t feel bad spending them on what most would refer to as excessive amounts of ice cream. To come back from winter break to find out that the freezer of Ben & Jerry’s that I would lovingly point out on campus tours to prospective families was now stocked with an inferior ice cream brand was, in a word, devastating.

Before you tell me I’m being dramatic, I’ll have you know that I gave the Breyers ice cream an honest try. In fact, I tried it with my best friend, who happens to work at an ice cream shop so she knows her stuff. We each grabbed a pint – I went for the Reese’s flavor, she opted for cookie dough – and went in for a taste test. I apologize to anyone who thinks Breyers is a high-quality ice cream, but it’s just not that great.

The ice cream itself isn’t creamy and tastes a bit like water, the flavors aren’t very strong, and overall the quality disappointed my friend to the point that she ended up throwing out most of her pint of Breyers. I’m not trying to be an ice cream snob, but Breyers cannot simply provide the same enjoyable eating experience as Ben & Jerry’s. Any comparison between the two is laughable to me. The pints of Breyers that now sit in the freezer in Chuck’s are a weak replacement for the variety and quality of Ben & Jerry’s, and I’m not here for it.

I’ve heard that one of the reasons that the switch was made to Breyers was due to the price of Ben & Jerry’s. The justification, therefore, is that the Breyers ice cream is cheaper for students, which allows them to save more of their Chuck’s points. This is ridiculous considering the fact that the Ben & Jerry’s is only a dollar or two more than the Breyers, and it’s obvious when comparing the two that the extra dollar goes towards the superior quality of Ben & Jerry’s.

Besides, the thoughts going through a college student’s head while buying a pint of ice cream in Chuck’s is not how much it’s gonna cost, but how good it’s gonna taste. That anticipation of that delicious first bite of ice cream after a rough day of class is worth the six-ish points spent on a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, so removing Ben & Jerry’s from Chuck’s solely based on price is aggravating to think about.

Also, I’ve seen the contents of that freezer sell out fast when restocks of both classic Ben & Jerry’s flavors and a few new ones to try (like their Moo-phoria Light Ice Cream options, which are still delicious), whereas since coming back I haven’t seen a significant budge in the Breyers selection. To me, that speaks volumes that Ben & Jerry’s is what Assumption students want, regardless of cost.

There are likely many people on this campus that think any sort of upset over the tragic loss of Ben & Jerry’s in Chuck’s is silly, because to them ice cream is just ice cream. I would not be passionately writing about ice cream if I thought that way, and I truly do believe that Chuck’s made a mistake with the switch to Breyers.

Ice cream is something that should always provide a euphoric experience to those indulging, and Breyers is less of an indulgence and more of an unsatisfying second-choice that pales in comparison to Ben & Jerry’s. When Chuck’s comes around and realizes its grave mistake, you can bet that I’ll be at that freezer as soon as possible. Until then, it’s likely you’ll be seeing far less of me on the left side of Chuck’s because there’s no reason to get excited about the contents of the freezer.

Meg Brennan, a junior, studies English. She is a staff writer for Le Provocateur.

61 recommended
2388 views
bookmark icon