Feb 27, 2012

Ben & Jerry's Creates 'Lin-Sanity' Ice Cream Controversy

Ice cream company Ben & Jerry's has morphed pop culture with their frozen delights again. This time with NBA star Jeremy Lin.

Their latest flavor, "Taste the Lin-Sanity," being served in Boston's Harvard Square, is comprised of vanilla frozen yogurt and swirls of honey, but now comes with a side of a waffle cone instead of fortune cookies mixed in, after experiencing some backlash of being a racist connotation.

The Boston shop serving the ice cream issued an apology on Twitter for offending anyone by their handmade flavor, saying, "We offer a heartfelt apology if anyone was offended by our handmade Lin-Sanity flavor."

"We are proud and honored to have Jeremy Lin hail from one of our fine, local universities and we are huge sports fans," Ben & Jerry's continued in a news release. "Our intention was to create a flavor to honor Jeremy Lin's accomplishments and his meteoric rise in the NBA, and recognize that he was a local Harvard graduate. We try (to) demonstrate our commitment as a Boston-based, valued-led business and if we failed in this instance we offer our sincere apologies."

The manager of the Cambridge and Boston area Ben & Jerry's stores told the Boston Globe that although there was some negative feedback at first, the main reason they changed the flavor's ingredients was because a few of the limited edition pints were returned because the cookies got "soggy."

Lin has become an overnight sensation since hitting the court for the New York Knicks, filling in as point guard while others have been injured.

Lin played for the Harvard Crimson and graduated with a degree in economics before joining the NBA in 2010, according to ESPN .

"Taste of Lin-Sanity" is being offered for a limited time at the Harvard Square location only.