Greenies Freeze Out Ben & Jerry's for Water Waste

(NEWSER) - Fresh-food pioneer Chez Panisse has joined a growing number of San Francisco–area restaurants in striking bottled water from the menu. The decision to serve local tap water only—flat or carbonated in-house—comes from an effort to cut down on the packaging waste and energy used shipping bottles. More»

Vermont site features company's past misses

(NEWSER) - Ever find yourself missing Rainforest Crunch? How about Fresh Georgia Peach, or Wild Maine Blueberry? Console yourself by making a pilgrimage to Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard in Waterbury, Vermont. The cemetery features gravestones for flavors dead and gone, driven off store shelves because they sold poorly, were too difficult to make, or required an overly expensive ingredient, NPR reports. Tasty lost flavors are honored with poems. More»

Original recipe in honor of Knicks star sparked a 'backlash'

(NEWSER) - Ben & Jerry's might have been, um, Linsane, to think nobody would be offended. The ice cream company recently released a limited-edition flavor in honor of New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin, but promptly removed the bits of fortune cookies mixed in, reports Boston.com. Pints of "Taste the Lin-Sanity," based on the 23-year-old Asian-American Harvard grad, are available only at the campus shop in Cambridge. More»

Protected area size of Mexico

(NEWSER) - A Mexico-size chunk of the Pacific will soon be a haven for sharks—and they have a tiny island nation to thank. The Marshall Islands’ government is declaring its waters off-limits to commercial shark fishing and the trade of shark products, the BBC reports, providing the creatures with 750,000 square miles of worry-free swimming. “There is no greater statement we can make about the importance of sharks to our culture, environment, and economy,” says a senator. More»

'We thought it would never happen,' notes NPR

(NEWSER) - It seemed like it had to be a joke , but it turns out it's just based on one: Ben & Jerry's is indeed making a flavor in tribute to Alec Baldwin's raunchy "Schweddy Balls" skit on SNL, reports NPR, which was itself skewered for its famously sonorous tones in the sketch. "We've always been a company that has had a sense of humor," says a B&J spokesman, who notes the dessert is already headed to stores. And "this is just plain silly." Schweddy Balls is "vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum and is loaded with fudge covered rum balls and milk chocolate malt balls." You can watch Pete Schweddy talk up his delicious balls in the gallery. More»