As a result, when Craisins sales skyrocketed, millions of gallons of viscous, bitter concentrate flooded Ocean Spray’s storage freezers. In reality, though, Craisins were both a savior and a scourge: They hoisted profits, but the more Ocean Spray produced, the more cranberry-juice concentrate it was left holding. In the process, says longtime Ocean Spray farmer John Garretson, Papadellis emerged as “the Bill Belichick of the cranberry industry.” With boundless consumer appeal, the shriveled hulls of cranberries reduced the industry-wide glut of fruit and blossomed nearly overnight into a bite-size blockbuster that resurrected the cranberry business. He set out to bring the juice giant back from the brink, and by 2005 had discovered a company-saving cash cow: Craisins, those addictive little treats that are a whole lot like raisins-sweet enough to soothe a tyrannical toddler’s afternoon tantrum yet packed with enough fiber to kick-start a senior citizen’s GI tract. It was nearly impossible for a farmer to turn a profit, and hatchet men from Bain & Company and Merrill Lynch had advised company brass to trim the fat and dump the brand while it was still worth selling. When Papadellis first arrived at Ocean Spray, prices had hit rock bottom because of a massive surplus of cranberries on the market.
Thanks to rising profits during his first five years at the helm, growers from Massachusetts to Oregon had supreme confidence in Papadellis-a proven miracle worker who had rescued them from hard times before. To his surprise, however, no one seemed particularly bothered by the gloomy prediction. In March 2008, Ocean Spray CEO Randy Papadellis stood behind a lectern at Disney World warning a ballroom full of farmers that the cranberry market was about to collapse.
0 kommentar(er)
