Cranberry Stressline
April 9 - 14, 2000
Archives
The Juice
Aisle: Labels
Overproduction has growers writing with red ink form the Grayland Daily World
The Farmer as Warrior - review of Hanson's latest book from the Boston
Globe
Dairy farmland development in Bridgewater, Mass.
Editorial on Managing Anger
How the cranberry crisis effects Carver, Mass.
Does it flow? from the Motley Fool
S. Korean company seeks to buy dried berries
Ocean Spray makes appointment to newly created European position
William Pietersen: O.S. news board member
Gatorade goes "FIERCE"
Snapple leads Triarc earnings
Don Hatton quoted in South Beach Bulletin
Farm labor immigration bill
The juice aisleLabels5/14/00 by Hal Brown. If you didn't notice the word "cranberry" on the label, by taste alone you'd think this Nantucket Squeezed Nectars cranberry lemonade (click on picture to enlarge) was simply pink lemonade. In fact, as pink lemonade it couldn't get any better if you grew, harvested and squeezed the lemons yourself. However, Betty and I couldn't taste any cranberry flavor at all even though the ingredient list reads "water, cane sugar, lemon and cranberry juice not from concentrate, lemon pulp, natural flavors, citrus cloud emulsion and ascorbic acid. The only indication that this is a cranberry blend on the front label is on the bottom where it says "Cranberry Lemonade." The label itself has a big sliced lemon on the top and a field of some kind of abstract generic flowers that has nothing to do with citrus, let alone lemons or cranberries. Apparently the cranberry ingredient is being used for color rather than flavor, because this is really just a delicious pink lemonade.
A Minute Maid label was featured on the inside-the-back-cover "Selling It" section of the June
issue of Consumer Reports. Under the title "Food
Follies," Consumers Reports says "three food packages have
readers riled. The Minute Maid carton says 'home
squeezed' and '100% pure squeezed.' The little words
under those two big claims? 'Style' and 'from
concentrate.' The deceptively named AllJuice made the article
because, surprise, surprise, it is actually only 15% juice."
The farmer as warriorHe knows that "without a drastic change in our collective will, there's little that can be done to save the remaining small farms" 5/14/00 Jane Brox reviews Victor Davis Hanson latest book on agriculture, "The Land was Everything" in the Sunday Boston Gloves Living Arts Section. Hanson wrote the acclaimed 1996 "Fields Without Dreams." Brox writes of the latest book:
Read Boston Globe book review here
|
Sunday - In the newsOverproduction has growers writing with red ink5/14/00 From an article in the Sunday Daily World out of Grayland:
Dairy farmland development ignites controversy in Bridgewater5/14/00 From an article in the South Weekly section of the Boston Globe:
|
EditorialManaging Anger5/12/00 There have been several postings on the Forum in the past few days which concern me. These suggest that some people's anger has turned to rage and they are having fantasies of retribution. There are two totally wrong ways to express anger which has become rage, and those are to express it behaviorally against people (obviously the worst), or to express it destructively against objects. There are two right ways to manage anger. One is to work it through by talking to others, and the other is to take constructive action to remedy the cause of the anger. Of course, in many situations, doing both of these together is the most beneficial. The only other acceptable way to handle anger besides these approaches is to "stuff it." In other words, it is better to hold your anger in than to act it out physically against a person or an object. Legal consequences and morality aside, physically explosive expressions of anger only make the anger worse, and lead to detrimental biochemical changes in the body. Such anger outbursts can even cause heart attacks. They lead to a brief catharsis but ultimately make you feel worse. (Read "How to control rage attacks") Normal people's anger can turn to expressed rage when they feel the following:
Being preoccupied with revenge fantasies is a danger sign. If you know of anyone who has gone beyond the fantasy stage and has told you they are actually making a plan, you should inform the intended victim. As a licensed clinical social worker, I have a legal " duty to warn" if I believe a patient is planning to harm another individual. Your duty is a moral and ethical one. Continued here | Easy to print version
|
How the cranberry crisis affects one small town5/13/00 Carver and Middleboro both bill themselves at the "cranberry capital of the world." While Middleboro is home to Ocean Spray headquarters and has its share of cranberry bogs, it is also by area the second largest city in Massachusetts. Carver on the other hand is a much smaller town with only approximately 14,000 acres of land area, and with cranberry growers controlling half the taxable land. The town itself is home to over 3,500 acres of active cranberry bogs, 25% of its total land area. In Carver even the police cars are cranberry colored. According to an article in May 11, 2000 Carver Reporter, the state has just dropped the per acre value on cranberry bogs from $16,000 to $8,700. Townspeople in Carver are no doubt ambivalent about helping their friends and neighbors who are cranberry growers in this way because it will increase their own taxes. The town assessor, Charles Hamilton, is quoted in the Carver Reporter as saying "one hundred cranberry growers will benefit, but all others are going to feel the impact." Steve Romano, Carver tax collector and treasurer said "I never thought the state would do that. It doesn't make sense to lower it that low. It's illogical." Carver will probably lose approximately $700,000 in tax revenue for the fiscal year which starts in July. Although they have money in an account used to offset such losses in revenue, they also anticipate a cut in state aid. Thus, the combined losses could lead to the town's having a $1.8 million deficit. The article notes that the cranberry crisis has led cranberry growers to make plans to develop their uplands for housing. Makepeace, for example, has filed subdivision plans for 3,000 acres in Carver. The fact that residential developments usually cost the town more than they receive from home tax revenue is mentioned. What the town officials quoted in the article don't mention is that Makepeace doesn't necessarily have to turn their uplands into housing. Carver's cranberry growers need all the help they can get. If a significant number go out of business and their bogs go fallow, the town's budget will be in dire straits until Carver can become a bedroom community to Boston with very expensive homes and a tax rate that can support a town with no other major tax base besides residences. A scanned copy of the Carver Reporter article is being sent to those on the email list.
|
Does it flow? 5/11/00 The Motely Fool web site suggests a way to analyze a companies performance utilizing figures available in their SEC 10Q filings or other financial reports. It is called the Flow Ratio, which requires that you have the figures to compute the following formula: current assets minus cash & equivalents divided by current liabilities minus short term debt. The article compares Pepsi, which flows, and Wrigleys, which doesn't. Read
article here.
William Pietersen: Ocean Spray's newest board member 5/10/00 William Pietersen is a highly respected advisor to senior corporate managers and a retired CEO with a stellar track record. During the past year he was an advisor to the Ocean Spray board. He is now a professor and consultant, as well as a speaker who commands fees in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. He is credited with successfully launching Tropicana in Japan, Canada and the U.K. Pietersen lectures frequently to business groups on the topics of superior performance in today's global marketplace, how to build a learning organization, how to achieve global competitiveness and how to create a winning strategy. You can read a biography that supplements the information from the Ocean Spray press release, and includes a photograph, from the Keppler Associates speakers bureau here. Related Links: Pietersen on government subsidies for R&D | Columbia University profile with email Stressline Congratulates: 5/9/00 Jillian Spangler and Jenna Morrison, sophomores at Plymouth South High School, won first and second prizes at the 51st Mass. State Science Fair. The fair was held at MIT in Cambridge. Spangler won her first place award of a $40,000 scholarship to Wheaton College for her entry on the effect of cranberry bog fertilizer on pond eutrophication. Morrison's $40,000 scholarship to Wheaton was also won on a cranberry entry. It was on controlling dodder on cranberry bogs. Spangler's first place prize takes take her to the International Science Fair in Detroit which runs through this week. Source: The Brockton Enterprise 5/7/00 |
Ocean Spray Press Release: Former Seagram, Tropicana exec named to Ocean Spray board Columbia Prof. William Pietersen is cranberry co-op's first outside director LAKEVILLE, Mass. -- William G. Pietersen, a professor of management at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and a former top executive of the Seagram Beverage Group and Tropicana Products, has become the first outside member appointed to the Board of Directors of Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc., a growers' cooperative. Pietersen, 62, will serve as one of three outside directors to be appointed to the Board as part of a company restructuring approved by Ocean Spray's 930 grower-owners at their recent annual shareholders' meeting. The co-op's Board had been comprised of 25 grower-owners, with no external or management representation. In a move to speed up decision-making and bring fresh perspective to the panel, shareholders voted to shrink the board from 25 to 15, and include three outside directors and the CEO. "We're honored and fortunate that Professor Pietersen is joining our board," said CEO Rob Hawthorne, who was hired by Ocean Spray in January to lead a company turnaround. "His experience and insight, including 20 years running consumer products and beverage companies, will be invaluable to the Board as we work to return profitability to Ocean Spray's growers." Pietersen is the former president of Tropicana Products, Inc., and the Seagram Beverage Group. He also served in top management positions with the Unilever Group, Sterling-Winthrop, Inc., and the United Distillers Group of North America. Pietersen is chairman of the Institute for the Future, a think tank based in Menlo Park, Calif. He also serves on the Boards of Ruder-Finn, Inc., a New York-based public relations agency, and Lykes Brothers, Inc., a Florida agribusiness. A Rhodes Scholar, Pietersen holds a B.A. and L.L.B. in law and economics from Rhodes University, South Africa, and an M.A. in law from Oxford University. Related links: Institute for the Future | Ruder-Finn, Inc. | Lykes Brothers - 1 - Lykes Brothers - 2 | Columbia Business School Executive Management Program |
Gatorade goes Fierceby Hal Brown
|
Snapple leads Triarc to first quarter surge5/8/00 Business Wire: Triarc Companies, Inc. announced today a 10% increase in Snapple® case sales in the 2000 first quarter which fueled a 26% increase to $14.0 million in premium beverage adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, other non-operating items, depreciation and amortization and unusual or non-recurring items). Compared to the first quarter of 1999, total adjusted EBITDA for consumer products increased 14% to $29.6 million reflecting continued strength at Snapple, Stewart's®, Royal Crown® and Arby's®. Read press release here. South Beach Bulletin:Growers dig in...5/8/00 New: Click below to read entire article. "In all likelihood, we're not even going to cover the cost of growing cranberries in ' 99, and probably not for ' 98 as well... Although some management decisions have hurt the industry, oversupply is certainly the heart and soul of the problem. Last fall Ocean Spray had a record crop of approximately 1 million barrels more than planned.... Certainly everyone is suffering. Newer growers tend to have higher debt loads and it's going to be especially difficult for many of them." Former Ocean Spray board chairman Don Hatton as quoted in the article "Growers dig in as cranberry prices plunge" by Barb Aue in the Grayland area weekly, the South Beach Bulletin. Read entire article here. |
Previous
edition: John Wilson
named to head grower relations
Stock market down but food stacks up
Swendrowski questions Ocean Spray accounting procedures, calls for
judicial review
First Pioneer: growers have until July to make spring payments
Makepeace
to develop huge tract | Getting Soaked: Drop in
cranberry prices threatens industry
Former board member (Kapell) speaks out