Week Three BOC: Apple Juice Scandal

Many are aware that companies may not always tell the entire truth in their advertisements or marketing. A smart person will know not to always trust a label. Business is business and companies have to make a profit, even if it means bending the truth a little. A smart consumer will know how to read between the lines when they hear a brand slogan. But what if a company skipped right over bending the truth and completely lied to its consumers. As if that wasn't bad enough, what if their consumers were babies? Beechnut Apple Juice completely lied to it's customers back in a case during 1987. The company made their juice from sugar water and a little flavoring, and had to the nerve to call their product apple juice.

Beechnut was a trusted brand by mothers who fed apple juice to their babies when doctors would recommend the sweet drink to their patients children who needed more fluid. Moms thought they were purchasing apple juice made from actual apples, when all they were really buying was colored/flavored sugar water. "The product that Beech-Nut had been marketing as 100 percent apple juice was actually made from beet sugar, cane sugar syrup, corn syrup and other ingredients, with little if any apple juice in the mixture. Prosecutors said at the time of the indictment that the bogus apple juice cost about 20 percent less to make than real apple juice."

''We believe that Beech-Nut's fine represents the largest fine ever paid under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by at least sixfold since the act's enactment in 1938,'' Richard K. Willard, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the civil division, said in Washington.The phony juice caused the company to pay a $2 million fine. "He said that the misrepresented juice, although not pure apple juice, contained only ''safe food ingredients'' and had presented no danger to health." It is still dishonesty. Sugar isn't good for babies to have to much of; the company basically “poisoned” their consumers and has forever scarred their brand. Niels L. Hoyvald and John F. Lavery were the men responsible for such a scandal. They were both sentenced to jail time and owed thousands of dollars for their dishonesty. It's amazing what people will do for an extra buck.