Ben & Jerry's is owned by Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company. The company spent $9 billion on advertising last year, according to Ronnie Cummins, the international director for the Organic Consumers Association. "A significant portion of that was spent to the false perception that Ben & Jerry's is committed to a clean environment and high animal welfare standards," Cummins said in a prepared statement. Michael Colby is an activist with Regeneration Vermont who worked with the consumer group on the case. He said Ben & Jerry's does have a "Caring Dairy" program — under that program, a third party verifies that farms meet certain standards for animal care, environmental protection and fair labor practices. But Colby said the company's milk supplier, the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, does not segregate milk from "Caring Dairy" farms and that less than 25 percent of the co-op's farms met the "Caring Dairy" standards.