“One of the biggest men in American business is being driven out of the country.”
Nobody down in the valley does much laughing about labor costs. They’re going up. And the Jolly Green Giant had to face the sad blue problem of meeting greater demand without pricing himself out of the market.
It was a typical business problem, and Forbes Magazine covered it in its typical businesslike way.
First, Forbes found that affluence is changing American palates. Four years ago, for example 95% of Green Giant sales came from corn and peas. Now the Giant gets some 55% of his sales from such exotics as asparagus and broccoli.
Second, asparagus, broccoli and the like are high labor vegetables.
Third, the same prosperity that beefed up demand for these exotics also beefed up harvesting costs. It is a vicious vegetarian cycle.
Fourth, the Green Giant thinks he has a way out: go to the underdeveloped countries, where labor costs are also underdeveloped. The Giant already gets one-third or his mushrooms from Formosa. And plans are afoot to start little green valleys in South Korea, Mexico and ho ho ho only knows where else.
Finally, diversification or merger. The Green Giant has given it considerable thought. Some offers have been made. Oil and tobacco companies are anxious to get into food. But so far, according to the chief executive giant, “neither the terms nor the price has been right.”
And that’s just a taste of the way Forbes handles a story. Because its the way a busy businessman likes it — pithy, pertinent and sound as a dollar.
The above was quoted entirely from an advertisement for Forbes magazine in the New York Times, February 12, 1968, page 80.
