In two parts:

Part I.

When growers' need to know outweighs Ocean Sprays' need to keeping production secrets secret.

by Hal Brown, LICSW
Farm Stress Psychotherapist

 

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Text of  above Fax:

TO: HOUSE AD PARTICIPANTS
HOUSE AD CHANGE NOTICE
Suffield North and South 4 page
and 8 page

Please be advised, that because of continuing production problems, we have been forced to pull the 48 oz. Ocean Spray Cranberry cocktail out of the House Ad of 3/14/99. We apologize for the lack of notice on this ad change, but Ocean Spray has not lived up to their commitment on shipping product for this promotion. The codes are ----------

We will try to communicate in future editions of the Grocery Merchandiser if these conditions change. Thanks, Mike Rimkus, Supervisor


Good Secrets, Bad Secrets

Even a psychotherapist who believes that the ability and willingness to self-disclose is a sign of mental health, high self-esteem and personal integrity recognizes that there are times when total honesty isn't appropriate. When it comes to industrial secret-keeping, whether your company makes microchips or markets cranberries, there are many areas where confidentiality is important. Intel certainly wouldn't have told all their employees the secrets of the new Pentium III. Ocean Spray likewise wouldn't and shouldn't tell growers about new products in development, marketing strategies, and advertising plans. However, just as our own government entrusts top secret information to certain Congressional oversight committees, it makes sense that our Board of Directors is kept informed of everything that goes on at Ocean Spray.

The cranberry industry is in crisis. This is also a personal crisis for all cranberry growers, causing the worst farm stress in years, threatening the solvency of many farms and leading to clinical anxiety and depression among growers, their families and employees. It is a time when, in the interest of mental health, Ocean Spray executives and the Board of Directors should reevaluate the criteria for keeping information secret.

The old saying "no news is good new" hasn't held up. It doesn't take a cynic to reverse that to "no news means someone is withholding bad news". It was also naive to think that information such as what is revealed in this faxed memo about "continuing production problems" at Ocean Spray would not be circulated. Thus, the stress of hearing more bad news was compounded by anger directed at those we entrust to have our best interests at heart.

From a psychotherapists' clinical perspective, this is not conducive to mental health. The best and most successful companies today have concluded that fostering high employee moral translates into high productivity. Even our local (Massachusetts) Jordans' furniture superstore just closed for a week so the owners could fly all the employees in three chartered 747's to an all expenses paid Caribbean vacation. Good morale is just another term for good work mental health. Cranberry growers who are part of Ocean Spray actually "own" the company. So they especially have a right to information that directly effects their economic survival.

There are several other reasons that growers should be informed of corporate problems. One is the trust factor. If growers are to trust Ocean Spray, they should believe they will be kept informed of both the good and the bad news. Executives should trust their Board, and the Board should trust the growers. Another, less charitable reason, is enlightened executive self-interest. It is better for the Board and growers to learn about problems directly from Ocean Spray or through their Directors, than indirectly through the rumor mill, from other sources, or via Cranberry Stressline.

Every Cranberry Grower Should be Online

In this age of the Internet, each and every cranberry grower needs to be "wired". The Ocean Spray Extranet is only accessible to co-op members. It offers an instant way to disseminate information. Mailing information, such as the 1999 price predictions, was a 20th century way to release this information. (OC spent millions on a new computer system, so they should get with 21st century communication.) Growers who called Ocean Spray for this information were told that they would have to wait until the received the data in the mail. Meanwhile, most of the information had leaked, and some growers were getting the bad news from their accountants. Some of the information was even worse than what actually came out. (See below for how to get online at rock bottom prices.)

All Ocean Spray information to growers could be put on the Extranet. Alternately, the same information could be disseminated by email. There is no rational reason for not doing this. Additionally, growers who are online could elect to receive all their information.

The Extranet forum (message board) has not been extensively used. The Cranberry Stressline Forum is just getting started. The Extranet Forum is limited to Ocean Spray growers, while anyone in the world can post to, and read the Cranberry Stressline Forum. Either provides a way for all growers and interested parties to share information and engage in debate.

In the world of cyberspace,  web sites with stale information are held in disrepute. The Ocean Spray Extranet, for example, still had directions to the Annual Meeting online after the meeting. As the webmaster for the CCCGA web site, for example, I made sure I took the directions to the Cranberry Festival off the web site the night the festival ended. It may seem like a small thing, but web sites are the newspapers of the 21st century. You'd never trust a newspaper that printed yesterday's weather forecast today. 

The Complex Stresses of Farming

This is an illustration of how complicated the stresses on farmers can be. There are lessons to be learned by all farmers, not just cranberry growers. The marketplace is often cruel and heartless. Grocery chains are profit oriented, they have little loyalty to one brand over another as long as consumers continue to shop in their store. Consumers generally could care less whether their favorite brand is on the shelves. There are always alternatives an arm's length away.

For whatever reason, Ocean Spray couldn't meet the demand for one of their products at Supervalue, and this apparently caused them to pull a house ad. The tone of the memo from Supervalue is quite negative, and one can assume the the executives at Ocean Spray received an equally negative complaint from Supervalue executives. Ocean Spray cranberry growers, already reeling from the recent announcements of drastic price cuts, now discover that even though there is an oversupply of cranberries and less demand for the product, a  distributor can't get enough Cranberry Juice Cocktail to run a promotion.

No wonder growers are stressed.

Part II

 

First quarter demand for Ocean Spray products greater than anticipated.
 
SuperValue again advises member stores to pull Ocean Spray products out of house ads as co-op faces problems filling orders.
 
For the second time an internal SuperValue memo (Click here to read Memo) has come to the attention of Cranberry Stressline (click here for previous memo dated March 2, 1999) advising stores to remove Ocean Spray products from house ads, this time for May 23rd and May 30, 1999.  These were to be promotions for the 64 oz. cranberry blends and the 48 oz. grapefruit blends. The memo cites production problems at Ocean Spray and apologizes to the stores for the lack of notice stating that "Ocean Spray has not lived up to their commitments on shipping product for these promotions."

In a letter, also obtained by Stressline,  dated April 16, 1999 from Nancy McDermott, Senior Vice President in charge of Ocean Spray's In-Home Strategic Market Unit,  distributors are informed that  "Ocean Spray continues to face problems filling your orders and must now reduce promotional volume to restore the level of service you need. Effective immediately we are canceling all promotions scheduled for May and June to help replenish our inventory".

She goes on to attribute the problem to a misjudgment in demand in January which depleted inventory, and stronger than anticipated demand in February and March.

According to the letter, all previously planned promotions with shipment dates prior to June 21, 1999 are being cancelled. Plants, it is pointed out, are producing at capacity and have yet to reach manageable inventory levels.

Ocean Spray is in the process of implementing their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) program which when operational is expected to streamline all business processes. The ERP is a $30 million high-tech system for integrating all of the companies business operations. McDermott's letter states that Ocean Spray planned for some slowdowns while operations transitioned into the ERP program, they did not anticipate the high number of orders which were received.

The In-Home Division of Ocean Spray is an $800 million unit which is responsible for marketing all Ocean Spray cranberry and grapefruit products. McDermott was recently promoted to the head of the division from her prior position as senior vice president of Operations-Value Chain.  Her responsibilities included managing the implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning system.

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