Planet Money delves into the ice cream-fueled shadow barter economy created near Ben & Jerry's Vermont home, where "Each Ben & Jerry's employee is allowed to take home three free pints of ice cream every single workday."; these free pints are called "seconds, which means, basically, happy, little factory accidents." Skip to 16:40 in the NPR podcast player below to get to the heart of an ice cream based economy and the ramifications of efficiency causing a shortage of seconds that had to be placated by diverting a shipment bound for a customer.
Back before Marlboro fell under the Altria Group, I had a friend that was a brand manager for Basic cigarettes that told me of the cigarette machines near the elevators at the Phillip Morris headquarters which doled out the allotted 1 pack of cigarettes per employee every single workday; so hearing about Ben & Jerry's and the ice cream shadow barter economy that erupted around it, sounds like both are perfectly cromulent perks.
