Week Three BOC : Beech Nut

How did Beech-Nut Corporation trash their brand with this scandal? About 300 words Demonstrate your understanding


In the year in the mid 1980’s Beech-Nut was part of the biggest scandal in food history when it was found that the corporation was adulterating the apple juice for their company. Beech Nut Corporation Nutrition is the third largest baby food manufacturer in the United States. It produced baby food ranging from juices to food for young children. In the mid 1980’s there was speculation that their apple juice was being adulterated with corn syrup and other artificial products. The company had just signed with a new apple concentrate supplier called Universal Juice Co. Their was a possibility that the company used corn syrup in their concentrate but the John F. Lavery head of operations decided to turn a blind eye. As Universal Juice Inc. would sell its concentrate at up to 25% below the market. Beech-Nut was saving the company millions of dollars by buying the apple concentrate from Universal Juice Inc. that switching to another one even though they knew their was a problem with the product would have cost a lot. According to Funding Universe, “Both Lavery and the company president Hoyvald refused to take action”. But in 1982, a private investigator hired by the Apple Processors Trade Association found out that the company was not only adding sweeteners to their mix, but they were failing to add apples into their concentration. “The plant’s dumpsters revealed that the so-called apple juice was in fact nothing but water, sugars, flavoring, and coloring”. After the news broke about the products used in making the “natural apple concentrate”, the company instead of recalling their product shipped it out across the country. The company was indicted in 1986. After that Beech-Nut racked up near-record losses in 1987. Beech-Nut has never been able to recuperate from such a big scandal.