Today we’re going to talk about something no fresh produce professional ever wants to live through but that you’d better be ready for if it lands on your doorstep: the reputational crisis.
Let me tell you the tale of Blue Fruit company and Red Fruit company — roughly, “So-and-So Fruits” and “Such-and-Such Fruits” — totally made-up names, just in case someone recognises themselves in the story and takes it the wrong way. So, as a disclaimer: any resemblance to reality would be pure coincidence.
Two stories running in parallel. Two fresh produce companies. Two near-identical accusations. Two radically different endings. And running through it all, one lesson that flatly contradicts what most crisis-management manuals have been teaching us for decades.
Let me start with a thought from the German philosopher Hegel on the Zeitgeist — that concept regarding the “spirit of the age” that binds us to our social reality and sets limits on what we’re able to do.
No man can step outside his own time, said Hegel. And that’s especially relevant for our sector, because the current fresh produce Zeitgeist has a particularly uncomfortable feature: we’re guilty until proven innocent and even once we’ve proven our innocence with a pile of certifications and external audits, we’re still under suspicion.
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