In the mid-1960s we knew a nun who was a believer in the
Catholic Worker movement. She was an
activist, a protester, a voice screaming against wrongs. She was also our
fourth-grade teacher.
One day, walking through a neighborhood supermarket with Mom, we ran in to
the good sister. She had chained herself to a display of grapes. Our teacher had
become a supporter of the
grape boycott and the
Delano grape strike.
We followed suit, refusing to eat grapes and
learning to love Cesar Chavez.
Years later we'Il still have a soft spot for boycotts. Our first instinct
when a company does wrong is to stop buying from them, and to urge others to do
the same. Our second instinct is to chain ourselves to a grape display.
Here are five food and beverage boycotts that caught our attention this
year.
1. BARILLA PASTA
Right about the time that Cesar Chavez
won his years-long battle to organize migrant farm workers, the gay rights
movement was just getting started. But by 2013, the LGBT movement had become
the global rights cause. Yet it appears no one told Guido Barilla,
president of the world's largest pasta company.
(Image credit: Flickr user Dave Kleinschmidt)
His comments last month that he would
never
use a same-sex couple in an advertisement were viewed as insensitive at
best, and downright homophobic at worst. Barilla quickly tried to back pedal,
but it was too late. Calls for boycotts popped up across the globe.
2. STOLICHNAYA VODKA
Gay rights are also at the center of
the call to boycott Russia's best-known vodka brand. Concern for the legal
rights and safety of gay people in Russia has captured the attention of the
world as athletes prepare for the Olympic Games next year in Sochi, Russia.
(Image credit: Flickr user Michael Dorausch)
A
gay bar in Chicago issued the first call to boycott Stoli vodka. The company
has since tried to distance itself from Russia's abysmal human-rights record,
but the boycott continues.
3. VINI LUNARDELLI
Speaking of nations run by madmen who
trample on the dignity of human beings, Vini Lunardelli found itself facing a
boycott after putting pictures of Adolph Hitler on bottles of its wine.
(Image credit: vinilunardelli.com)
Turns out the Italian wine maker has been using the Fuhrer's photo in
marketing material since 1995. But it was this year that the
Simon
Wiesenthal Center called for a boycott.
4. KROGER
Earlier this year, the Texas legislature
approved a bill to strengthen wage-discrimination laws. Gov. Rick Perry, a
Republican, vetoed the bill, despite bipartisan support for the new law. Several
days later the Houston Chronicle newspaper published a story outlining how two
giant retailers
—Kroger
supermarkets and Macy's department stores—
had
lobbied the governor to squash the bill.
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Activists decided to try to squash the companies instead, and called for a
boycott.
5. MONSANTO
Secret lobbying campaigns are also behind the
call to boycott products made with ingredients grown with Monsanto seeds. At
issue was a rider attached to an emergency spending bill passed by Congress in
March. That rider gave farmers the right to harvest crops from genetically
modified seeds even if courts said they could not. For weeks it was unclear who
was responsible for the rider, which activists called "the Monsanto Protection
Act."
(Image credit: Flickr user waywuwei)
Eventually Roy Blunt, a Republican congressman from Missouri, took
responsibility.
The
press was outraged. But there was little that could be done. Nor was there
much that needed to be done. The rider was set to expire when the emergency
spending bill did. And the Monsanto Protection Act became null and void this
week.
But when Blunt's rider showed anti-GMO forces that they could not rely on the
courts or Congress, a long-standing call to boycott Monsanto-based products took
on new life.
The problem, however, is that
the
list of products that can be traced to Monsanto is quite long, making a
boycott difficult.
Fortunately for activists,
there's
an app for that.
Article originally written for Fooddive.com by
By Paul Conley and can be located here:
http://www.fooddive.com/news/5-ugly-food-and-bev-boycotts-that-could-have-been-avoided/177502/
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