Why Ben & Jerry's Stopped Making Fossil Fuel Ice Cream

Every Ben & Jerry's fan has their favorite flavor — that one go-to pint that they reach for whenever they visit the freezer aisle of their local grocery store. The joy of picking up, say, a container of Chunky Monkey or the unbeatably nutty Peanut Butter World, can make up for a long day of disappointments. Every Ben & Jerry's fan also knows the sorrow of finding, after several fruitless grocery visits, that their favorite pint has been buried in the brand's famous Flavor Graveyard. One flavor, long since passed, that many fans still mourn is Fossil Fuel. 

Fossil Fuel, a sweet cream-based ice cream swirled with fudge dinosaurs and chocolate cookies, was first introduced in 2005. That same year, the brand used the newly released flavor to make a nearly 1,000-pound baked Alaska dessert, which was presented and consumed at the United States Capitol as a protest against oil drilling in Alaska. The quirky, chocolatey flavor doesn't appear to have been created for the protest, though its inception does align with the brand's anti-fossil-fuel push at the time.

Fossil Fuel didn't just help the brand raise awareness for environmental causes, it was also quite beloved by fans of the frozen dessert brand. However, this didn't stop it from being discontinued in 2010, and with seemingly no explanation. However, in a 2016 statement, Ben & Jerry's said that the company symbolically buried the flavor as a way of signaling its hope that the world would put an end to its reliance on fossil fuels like coal and oil.

Like so many Ben & Jerry's flavors, Fossil Fuel was more than just a tasty scoop. The flavor helped to raise awareness of our dependance on non-renewable energy sources, and fed into the themes the brand's "Lick Global Warming" campaign, which first launched in 2002. The campaign was multi-faceted, involving youth outreach,protests, and other pushes towards against climate change. Fossil Fuel's role as the base of Ben & Jerry's "World's Largest Baked Alaska"  in 2005 underscores its vital role in the brand's foray into climate activism. 

Clean energy isn't the only cause championed by the world renowned ice cream brand. In 2016, Ben & Jerry's released a flavor called Empower Mint, featuring a mint base, brownie mix-ins, and a fudge ribbon. The flavor was released 62 years to the day after the Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education case, which ended school segregation. The flavor wasn't just a celebration of wins for civil rights in America, but a call to action for those still fighting for equality. A part of the flavor's sales were also contributed to the NAACP in North Carolina. And in 2024, the brand pushed into presidential politics, launching "Scoop the Vote," an ice cream truck trek across the United States that helped bolster the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The brand also released a coconut Kamala themed flavor to go along with the campaign.

If you visit Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard to pay your respects, you'll find Fossil Fuel's headstone outfitted with a gnarly set of illustrated dinosaur teeth. Written between them is a rhyming epitaph. It reads: "Fudgy dinosaurs galore / Got all dug up til there were no more. / A flavor re-design might be do-able / But Fossil Fuel is non-renewable."

Of course, Fossil Fuel isn't the only Ben & Jerry's flavor to cross the rainbow bridge rather abruptly. A slew of pints have come to an unexpected end, many of which deserve a second chance. Although the brand has plenty of iconic and objectively delicious flavors both enduring and demised, some simply missed the mark, like the short-lived Black and Tan flavor released in 2006 for St. Patrick's Day. Named after a layered beer drink, it stirred up controversy in Ireland, where the term "black and tan" is associated with a violent British paramilitary force. The flavor was quickly shelved, and the company apologized. Other pints, such as the pear-and-chocolate-flavored Oh Pear, which was only available for several months in 1997, simply came up short in taste.

However, Fossil Fuel was neither controversial nor unpopular, making its sudden loss even more jarring. While the brand did explain the reasoning behind its decision to pull the flavor, many fans were left reeling from the loss. Some even resorted to making their own versions of the flavor. The key to perfecting a Fossil Fuel facsimile? Make the fudge chunks with dinosaur-shaped silicone molds. Now, while nothing can replace the original, until it's revived, fans will have to make do.