Did the grocery chain Publix stop selling Ben & Jerry's ice cream products? No, that's not true: The director of communications for Publix denied the claim and Ben & Jerry's products are still on Publix's website at the time of writing. This claim originated from a satirical website.
The claim appeared in an article published by The Dunning-Kruger Times on June 3, 2023, titled "Publix Drops Ben and Jerry's 'For the Good of Our Kids'" (archived here). It opened:
Ben and Jerry's decided to join the Woke Train to Nowhere, and it has officially cost them big.
This is what the article looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: The Dunning-Kruger Times screenshot taken on Tue Jun 13 14:12:44 2023 UTC)
The article claims that Publix CEO "Joe Barron" released a memo saying the grocery chain will no longer carry Ben & Jerry's ice cream because they have "engaged in a culture war" and "adult ideology."
In a June 13, 2023, email, Maria Brous, the director of communications for Publix, wrote to Lead Stories:
The referenced blog is not accurate. We continue to carry Ben & Jerry's.
Publix's CEO is Todd Jones, not Joe Barron. The name Joe Barron is commonly used in America's Last Line of Defense (ALLOD) stories as an homage to a deceased friend of the articles' creator. The Dunning-Kruger Times is part of the ALLOD network of satirical sites
Publix also has not released a memo stating they are dropping Ben & Jerry's. At the time of writing, Ben & Jerry's products are still available for purchase on Publix's website.
A search of "Publix drops Ben & Jerry's ice cream" in Google News' index of thousands of credible news sites did not yield any relevant articles backing up the claim.
The Dunning-Kruger Times
The Dunning-Kruger Times is a satirical website with an about page (archived here) that has following disclaimer:
About Us
Dunning-Kruger-Times.com is a subsidiary of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with 'comedy':
sat·ire ˈsaˌtī(ə)r noun: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
The website is named after the Dunning-Kruger effect, a term from a psychology experiment that describes the phenomenon of being ignorant of one's own ignorance. (That experiment has been disputed by a math professor.)
It is run by self-described liberal troll Christopher Blair.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on The Dunning-Kruger Times are here.
