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13219. PelleNilsson - 1/13/2005 3:55:27 PM You are absolutely right, thoughtful. I discovered that myself but I hadn't got around to posting it. My claim that Gevaila is family-owned is seriously dated but I have been brought behind the light (as we say here) by its advertisements which emphasize their roots and hide the fact that it is owned by a multinational giant. Now, when I think about it, it is very cleverly done. 13220. thoughtful - 1/13/2005 4:06:05 PM Pelle, I find 2 things amazing about it. One that the same company that can produce such excellent coffee is also capable of producing sludge that passes for coffee. The other, to turn it around, that a huge conglomerate like kraft can have the flexibility to allow such a premium coffee to continue to exist rather than sacrificing its quality for profits as so many other conglomerates have done once they take over a premium product.
Given the globalization of the food industry over the last 30 years, I would imagine it's hard to find any food producer that isn't part of some conglomerate, excepting the local shop keeper around the corner. Heck even Ben & Jerry's is owned by Unilever. 13221. Magoseph - 1/13/2005 4:45:52 PM Men Just Want Mommy by Maureen Dowd
A few years ago at a White House Correspondents' dinner, I met a very beautiful actress. Within moments, she blurted out: "I can't believe I'm 46 and not married. Men only want to marry their personal assistants or P.R. women."
I'd been noticing a trend along these lines, as famous and powerful men took up with the young women whose job it was to tend to them and care for them in some way: their secretaries, assistants, nannies, caterers, flight attendants, researchers and fact-checkers.
Have you noticed this trend too? 13222. alistairconnor - 1/13/2005 4:57:36 PM Surely not!!!! Ah you've floored me there Thoughtful.
Is that a recent development??
I visited the B&J factory a few years ago...
The business model strikes me as frankly strange for Unilever : the emphasis for B&J outlets (perhaps this has changed?) being on employing people who are in rehabilitation of various sorts, and other do-gooder stuff...
The quality of the product itself isn't necessarily incompatible with belonging to a multinational, but I would have thought the busniss ethics would be. 13223. thoughtful - 1/13/2005 5:13:06 PM From B&Js web site:
April 12[, 2000]: Ben & Jerry’s announces the company’s acquisition by Anglo-Dutch corporation, Unilever. Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors approve Unilever’s offer of $326 million ($43.60 per share, for 8.4 million outstanding shares), as well as a unique agreement enabling Ben & Jerry’s to join forces with Unilever to create an even more dynamic, socially positive ice cream business with a much more global reach. Under the terms of the agreement, Ben & Jerry’s will operate separately from Unilever’s current U.S. ice cream business, with an independent Board of Directors to provide leadership for Ben & Jerry’s social mission & brand integrity.
13224. thoughtful - 1/13/2005 5:13:24 PM
just checking toys
13225. wonkers2 - 1/13/2005 5:13:47 PM Re: Gevalia/Maxwell House sludge. What Kraft is doing is called segmenting the market, a technique by which a company produces products with distinct images and characteristics spanning the entire market for the particular product rather than focusing on one end or the other. General Motors almost put Ford out of business by offering everything from a Chevrolet to a Cadillac in a variety of colors while Henry Ford offered only one model in any color you wanted as long as it was black. Many customers never realized that Chevrolets and Cadillacs were made by the same company. 13226. alistairconnor - 1/13/2005 5:23:14 PM That'd be right, we visited in 1999.
How very clever. Have an ethical business as a social alibi... 13227. thoughtful - 1/13/2005 5:24:41 PM wonks i am aware of market segmentation, but often the corp culture gets in the way. It's one of the reasons why so many mergers fail...management often can't comprehend a different way of doing business, is sure it's way is right, then destroys the acquired company by forcing it into an inappropriate mold. It's difficult for management to let something different survive. That's why, for example, saturn is so remarkable...and don't think GM hasn't tried to bring it back into the fold many times.
Another example, Ford takeover of jaguar. If i were running the co, I would have kept jaguar's styling, but fixed the quality problems. Instead, ford has created a vehicle that looks very much like a taurus with a different hood ornament. IMO ford didn't understand what it was buying, and was determined to force jaguar into the ford mold.
I mean does this look like a car for James Bond?
13228. alistairconnor - 1/13/2005 5:35:47 PM Hahaha! I've lived through something similar : worked for many years for a small IT company. We were Jaguar, we were bought by Ford.
We all left in the end. Not a very profitable acquisition, I imagine.
Imagine calling that thing a Jaguar. 13229. thoughtful - 1/13/2005 5:54:20 PM Ah yes...we called them elevator companies. The acquiring firm usually failed to understand that what it really was buying rode the elevator and went home every night. So they'd take over the firm, fail to accommodate the employees, the employees left (or at least the good ones did) and the acquirer was left with an empty office building. 13230. Jenerator - 1/13/2005 7:12:16 PM The other espresson machine I really want, but my husband would still kill me for buying-
La Pavoni Europiccola, for $550. 13231. Jenerator - 1/13/2005 7:12:30 PM espresson? 13232. PsychProf - 1/13/2005 8:21:10 PM That the look you get when you taste it...new word. 13233. Wombat - 1/13/2005 9:00:44 PM The look you get when you realize that you've paid $550 for a machine that makes espresso that is no better than that made by a $10.00 pot. The main difference is that in the former, the steam is forced down through the coffee, while in the latter it is forced up.
You do get the steam thingie for foaming milk, though. 13234. Max Macks - 1/13/2005 9:08:35 PM OK Mago has persuaded me to come out of the closet
I too am a instant coffee maker and drinker.
I alternate between Yuban and Nestles something.
For some years I was making coffe with one of those elaborate pyrex glass things with a paper filter
and then pouring most of the left over down the drain.
I would never have had the courage to admit this
were it not for that fearless Magoseph
INSTANT COFFEE DRINKERS , UNITE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOOSE BUT YOUR BROWN WATER. 13235. Wombat - 1/13/2005 9:17:32 PM Actually, twice the amount of Medaglia D'Oro instant with a lot of sugar is not bad from an eye-opening standpoint. 13236. thoughtful - 1/13/2005 9:29:50 PM OK, so here I am in a new office building, waiting for the elevator and reading the directory...oncologoists....yoga...luncheon cafe...some construction company office.
Then I come across this:
Whole Body Dentistry
Anyone want to take a stab at what the heck that means???? 13237. Magoseph - 1/13/2005 10:14:06 PM Capped teeth? 13238. thoughtful - 1/13/2005 10:14:40 PM I was thinking a crown for you head?
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