PHILADELPHIA -- After years of selling ice cream flavors like Cherry Garcia and Bovinity Divinity, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen is turning his talents to marketing nontoxic hand soap and laundry detergent.
Cohen's new, socially conscious, Barred Rock venture capital fund and a Philadelphia nonprofit, Capital-to-People/Murex Investments, announced Tuesday they bought Norristown, Pa.-based Sun and Earth Inc. for $800,000.
The company, which employs 14 people, makes liquid hand soap, dishwashing liquid, household cleaner and laundry detergent from citrus and cocoanut oils.
The products are sold in Philadelphia, Boston and some supermarkets in the New York City area, Cohen said.
Cohen started the Barred Rock Fund with $5 million from last year's sale of Ben & Jerry's to Anglo-Dutch consumer products group Unilever to invest in companies in low-income areas that offer good entry-level jobs.
The investors said a 20-percent stake in Sun and Earth was reserved for distribution to employees, and employees will be provided with health insurance beginning in September.
But Cohen knows it will be tougher getting consumers interested in a brand of soap than in Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Chunky Monkey ice creams.
"Nothing is as easy to market as ice cream," Cohen said.
He also said the Sun & Earth plant reminded him of the beginnings, and socially active goals, of Ben & Jerry's in Burlington, Vt.
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