SDA gets results!Chiquita won’t join bunch boycotting Alberta oilsands products
37 Replies to “Ethical Oil Vs Blood Banana”
Don’t get too excited about Chiquita yet. They are still all over Forestethics.org site. I smell double talk and smokescreens.
Oh oh . . . this will not make the Eco-Loonies & Greenie Bigots very happy. They are used to having companies kow-tow to their lunatic fringe demands.
I’m betting they’ll turn on Chiquitta like a pack of rabid dogs on big bone.
Should be most fun to watch.
Ezra’s swear also helped bring the evil banana corporation to its knees!
Now it’s ‘Canadian Oil’ that they’re OK with. They need to state unequivocally that they’re fine with oil from Alberta bitumen. Until then, they’re just weasel words.
the banana banarama, it’s banana’s i tell ya.
They should still be punisged for even thinking about it.
Other companies may take note (wakeup call)
thankyou SDA and canadians for sending them such a strong message, this affects all canadian’s.
I’m not allowed to talk about bananas anymore…
It never hurts to claim victory…
Predictable. This was all a publicity stunt for Chiquita anyway, and when it backfired horribly what are you going to do but cancel it?
You could tell it had little to do with integrity because Chiquita exclusively boycotted Alberta oil sands. Had they truly cared about CO2 emissions they would have also reduced use of energy from coal or California crude.
This will make a fine case study for business colleges. The public knows crass opportunism when it sees it.
Think of all the oil Chiquita will save not having to deliver bananas to Western Canada. Dole or Delmonte for our house.
Chiquita made a big mistake because this gong show revealed the sick history of the company. I won’t buy Chiquita again…..ever.
Okay then. I am not gonna quit buying bananas that come from the banana belt for the rest of my life. I am just going to quit buying Chiquita bananas for the rest of my life or at least until the Chiquita banana label sports an I ♥ tar sands sticker.
Here’s our crack, the green extremists are on the wrong side of society this time and they’re too stubborn to admit it. After all, the choice has become easy. Blood oil or ethical, stable oil? Not much of a choice given the wonderful ground work laid down by the blood diamond campaign. Biting oneself in the ass must hurt some times.
My boycott of Chiquita continues. I’m also looking for other companies who speak out against our oil, or who use the Global Climate change scam to sell their goods and products, EG Coca Cola. Coke is on my boycott list too.
It’s good to see SDA bring them back down to earth. I won’t be going Chiquita until they denounce forestethics or until XL is approved.
Chiquita can kiss my royal Canadian arse… my boycott will continue… hitting then where it hurts… in the wallet.
Our local Co-op carries Chiquita and as of Wednesday, they have the whole letter from Chiquita denying their involvement posted right on the bin. The bin was a quarter full and over ripe. Anectdotal, but I think people really are voting with their wallets.
Dear Chickee:
Send proof you fired and replaced the marketing idiots that brought you to this place, and then and only then will we talk about my use of your products.
That’s an old article…Ezra handled that weasel letter from Chiquita on his show. Don’t buy Ed Loyd ‘s spin.
The scuttlebutt is that Chiquita has lost more sales in the US than Canada over this blunder.
There is a solid linkage with the Keystone XL pipeline situation….the TEA party buys Del Monte….OWS isn’t a sizable market……
Unintended consequences….
I used to always buy Chiquita for no other reason than brand recognition, now I can buy Dole and feel like I am doing something for my Country….The Coke boycott on the other hand was at first killing me as I really did not like the alternative, then I realized I can buy bottled water and drive them all insane, sometimes I even like to put the empty in a garbage can just to watch them twitch and hyper ventilate, it is not that I do not care about the environment, I truly do, I just care a whole bunch more about curing humanity even if it is just one brainwashed lefty at a time
My little boycott of Chiquita products will continue. They acted in a smug, sanctimonious fashion, for whatever misguided reason, and it came back to bite them in the a** big time. I sincerely hope that a few well-paid heads rolled over this debacle. Stupid actions always have consequences and no amount of backpedalling can change this fact.
As my mother used to say … “You made your bed, now lie in it.”
biffjr, well said and your mother was a smart lady.
Our boycott of Chiquita and Coke Cola products will continue.
Too late, the damage has already been done. I’m done with Chiquita anything, and Coke.
No more Lush bath bombs and no Coke, for me.
I haven’t bought a bottle of french wine since “Viva Le Quebec Libre” DeGaul put his pied in his bouche.
If Chiquita didn’t boycott our great oil, I wouldn’t have known they pay terrorists.
Stones and glass houses, they can keep their bananas and salad bags.
Keep boycotting anyone company that does not fully and publicly denounce Forest Ethics and any equivalent group.
29 Dec 2011 Calgary Herald LEE MORRISON
Chiquita’s Backtracking is Too little, Too Late
Chiquita’snew position remains overtly hostile
In November, U.S. banana giant Chiquita Brands stated in a letter to the U.S. environmental organization Forestethics that the company will avoid “where possible, fuels from tarsands refineries, and adopt a strategy of continuous improvements towards the elimination of those fuels,” and promised to work with Forestethics to trace the sources of its fuel and seek alternative suppliers.
There is nothing ambiguous about the letter, and especially the word “elimination.”
Nevertheless, the ensuing uproar in Canada, and especially in Alberta, together with a campaign for a boycott of Chiquita products, sent the company spinning into denial mode. It was, according to Chiquita vicepresident Manuel Rodriguez, all a misunderstanding and “Chiquita is not boycotting or banning Canadian oil. Today, Chiquita sources and will continue to source Canadian oil.”
Unfortunately, Chiquita’s clarification isn’t very clear. David Maclean of the Alberta Enterprise Group says that his body is satisfied that the company has dropped its anti-oil stance, but nevertheless describes the new position as “pretty mealy mouthed.”
Chiquita’s new position remains overtly hostile.
Company spokesman Ed Loyd clarified the clarification by stating, “I would say that our focus globally is avoiding carbon-intensive fuel supplies wherever possible . . . We have encouraged our suppliers to source various fuel sources that have a lower carbon footprint.”
In short, notwithstanding its half-hearted denials, Chiquita is still comfortably in bed with the environmental extortionists of Forestethics, who raise funds on the premise that “the tarsands pose a severe threat to our forests, air, water, health, and climate,” and that Alberta produces “dirty oil.”
Forestethics unabashedly wants to shut down what has become the economic engine, not only of Alberta, but of Canada.
Anger toward Chiquita has spread well beyond the borders of Alberta. In a furious letter to the company, David Bradley, president of the mighty Canadian Trucking Alliance, which represents thousands of trucking companies and independent owner-operators, describes himself as “utterly amazed that (Chiquita) would be so uninformed on the facts regarding the environmental realities of the oilsands.”
He questioned why Chiquita has decided that being beholden to despotic Middle Eastern or Venezuelan regimes is preferable to oilsands production. “I just think that’s crazy,” he said. He also pointed out the obvious: that truckers on the road have no way of knowing which fuels have oilsands content.
Chiquita Brands trying to sell itself as a company with a social conscience is beyond ironic. Chiquita is, after all, the successor to United Fruit Co., the ruthless predator that drove peasants from their lands, terrorized its workers, bribed officials at every level and controlled Central American governments to such a degree that it caused the phrase banana republic to become part of the English language.
To those apologists who maintain that it’s unfair to smear Chiquita with the tar brush of history, I offer a couple of anecdotes. Not many years ago, in Costa Rica, I was puzzled by the big plastic bags draped around banana bunches on a Chiquita plantation. A local peasant farmer explained to me that each bag contained a tiny dollop of powerful fungicide. He then volunteered that his sons needed jobs, but wouldn’t work for the fruit company because of its casual attitude toward dangerous chemicals. The men who applied the treated bags to the bananas, he said, suffered from headaches, dizziness, skin rashes and even nervous twitches.
In the tropics, I am a prodigious eater of bananas, but, with my tongue only partially in cheek, I told him that, if what he was telling me was true, I would change my eating habits. His unforgettable response was that I needn’t worry, because plantation bananas are all exported.
Four years ago, Chiquita was fined $25 million in a U.S. court for paying $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group during the period 1997 to 2004. In the course of the investigation, the company admitted that, prior to 1997, it had paid protection money to leftist FARC guerrillas. When right wing paramilitaries moved into Chiquita’s territory, payments were shifted to them, and FARC ceased to be a problem. Nobody knows how many guerillas were eliminated or how many innocents were collateral casualties.
Notwithstanding Chiquita’s half-hearted backtracking, the boycotting of its products should continue for two reasons. First, Canadians can continue to show their distaste for bananas with blood on them. Second, a message needs to be sent to the corporate world that yielding to threats from powerful environmental organizations can have unpleasant consequences.
SDA just sank the banana boat.
The only people to suffer are teachers who had to use cucumbers in sex ed classes.
It would be interesting to see how much money they have lost?
Our boycott of Chiquita and Coke Cola products will continue.
Posted by: Ken (Kulak) at January 5, 2012 6:20 PM
Why the coke ban? Is it for the stupid white Christmas can, their support of WWF, or both?
Pepsi is looking good right now
mhb23re
I wouldn’t trust Chiquita now anyway. They were sneaky and underhanded in the way they first defended themselves. My boycott will continue as well.
Chiquita’s so-called back-track is just the same worn-out talking points that the other firms used. Their response is pretty much word for word what Bed Bath & Beyond, Avon and Levis Straus used when confronted. Most likely the talking points were provided by Forest Ethics to all of these firms for when the back-lash came flying.
As far as I’m concerned, Chiquita and the rest are still on board with the eco-fascists.
Until I see a full page advertisment in the newspaper denouncing Forest Ethics and apologising for taking the misguided stand, I will continue to boycott these firms.
It should be noted that Walgreens and Concord Transport refused to back down. In the case of Concord Transport they have a lot of gall continuing to come out West. But that is typical of an arrogant Quebec firm.
I could give a sweet goddamn about what Chiquita is saying now trying to backtrack.
I will NEVER buy another Chiquita brand of anything again.
@ mhb, both. I first noticed that Coke was in bed with the eco-fascists during the Copenhagen AGW love in when their website had a WWF logo on it and they were proud of sponsoring the Copenhagen BS fest.
Too late bitches. I will never eat a chiquita again, never mind buy one.
I will be continuing my boycott of Chiquita, oil or no oil. It’s their human rights record in Central and South America that I became more aware of as a result of the oil kerfuffle that disgusts me the most.
I am finished buying chiquita, and coke products and also shopping at any super market controled by Loblaws.I refuse to pay that jerk Galen Weston 5 cents a bag in order to have my groceries put in plastic that allows me to carry them out of his store.The supposed justification for this is that the money is going to the World Wildlife Fund.
The WWF is a far left wing organization that is more concerned with social engineering than they are with the welfare of animals.If I want to support any charitable organization whether it be the WWF or the Salvation Army it should be voluntary not extorted from me at the cash register by employees of one of the richest families in Canada.
I love Ezra!
Hey Chiquita! ¡Chinga tú madre!
So how many of us that got laptops or whatever for the ‘Holiday season’ (Christmas) are going to return those new HP computers to wherever for some other make. Hewlett continues to give large quantities of cash to the Ecowackos who are against the proposed pipelines south and west.
Again it is time vote with live ammo – our wallets!
Don’t get too excited about Chiquita yet. They are still all over Forestethics.org site. I smell double talk and smokescreens.
Oh oh . . . this will not make the Eco-Loonies & Greenie Bigots very happy. They are used to having companies kow-tow to their lunatic fringe demands.
I’m betting they’ll turn on Chiquitta like a pack of rabid dogs on big bone.
Should be most fun to watch.
Ezra’s swear also helped bring the evil banana corporation to its knees!
Now it’s ‘Canadian Oil’ that they’re OK with. They need to state unequivocally that they’re fine with oil from Alberta bitumen. Until then, they’re just weasel words.
the banana banarama, it’s banana’s i tell ya.
They should still be punisged for even thinking about it.
Other companies may take note (wakeup call)
thankyou SDA and canadians for sending them such a strong message, this affects all canadian’s.
I’m not allowed to talk about bananas anymore…
It never hurts to claim victory…
Predictable. This was all a publicity stunt for Chiquita anyway, and when it backfired horribly what are you going to do but cancel it?
You could tell it had little to do with integrity because Chiquita exclusively boycotted Alberta oil sands. Had they truly cared about CO2 emissions they would have also reduced use of energy from coal or California crude.
This will make a fine case study for business colleges. The public knows crass opportunism when it sees it.
Think of all the oil Chiquita will save not having to deliver bananas to Western Canada. Dole or Delmonte for our house.
Chiquita made a big mistake because this gong show revealed the sick history of the company. I won’t buy Chiquita again…..ever.
Okay then. I am not gonna quit buying bananas that come from the banana belt for the rest of my life. I am just going to quit buying Chiquita bananas for the rest of my life or at least until the Chiquita banana label sports an I ♥ tar sands sticker.
Here’s our crack, the green extremists are on the wrong side of society this time and they’re too stubborn to admit it. After all, the choice has become easy. Blood oil or ethical, stable oil? Not much of a choice given the wonderful ground work laid down by the blood diamond campaign. Biting oneself in the ass must hurt some times.
My boycott of Chiquita continues. I’m also looking for other companies who speak out against our oil, or who use the Global Climate change scam to sell their goods and products, EG Coca Cola. Coke is on my boycott list too.
It’s good to see SDA bring them back down to earth. I won’t be going Chiquita until they denounce forestethics or until XL is approved.
Chiquita can kiss my royal Canadian arse… my boycott will continue… hitting then where it hurts… in the wallet.
Our local Co-op carries Chiquita and as of Wednesday, they have the whole letter from Chiquita denying their involvement posted right on the bin. The bin was a quarter full and over ripe. Anectdotal, but I think people really are voting with their wallets.
Dear Chickee:
Send proof you fired and replaced the marketing idiots that brought you to this place, and then and only then will we talk about my use of your products.
That’s an old article…Ezra handled that weasel letter from Chiquita on his show. Don’t buy Ed Loyd ‘s spin.
The scuttlebutt is that Chiquita has lost more sales in the US than Canada over this blunder.
There is a solid linkage with the Keystone XL pipeline situation….the TEA party buys Del Monte….OWS isn’t a sizable market……
Unintended consequences….
I used to always buy Chiquita for no other reason than brand recognition, now I can buy Dole and feel like I am doing something for my Country….The Coke boycott on the other hand was at first killing me as I really did not like the alternative, then I realized I can buy bottled water and drive them all insane, sometimes I even like to put the empty in a garbage can just to watch them twitch and hyper ventilate, it is not that I do not care about the environment, I truly do, I just care a whole bunch more about curing humanity even if it is just one brainwashed lefty at a time
My little boycott of Chiquita products will continue. They acted in a smug, sanctimonious fashion, for whatever misguided reason, and it came back to bite them in the a** big time. I sincerely hope that a few well-paid heads rolled over this debacle. Stupid actions always have consequences and no amount of backpedalling can change this fact.
As my mother used to say … “You made your bed, now lie in it.”
biffjr, well said and your mother was a smart lady.
Our boycott of Chiquita and Coke Cola products will continue.
Too late, the damage has already been done. I’m done with Chiquita anything, and Coke.
No more Lush bath bombs and no Coke, for me.
I haven’t bought a bottle of french wine since “Viva Le Quebec Libre” DeGaul put his pied in his bouche.
If Chiquita didn’t boycott our great oil, I wouldn’t have known they pay terrorists.
Stones and glass houses, they can keep their bananas and salad bags.
Keep boycotting anyone company that does not fully and publicly denounce Forest Ethics and any equivalent group.
29 Dec 2011 Calgary Herald LEE MORRISON
Chiquita’s Backtracking is Too little, Too Late
Chiquita’snew position remains overtly hostile
In November, U.S. banana giant Chiquita Brands stated in a letter to the U.S. environmental organization Forestethics that the company will avoid “where possible, fuels from tarsands refineries, and adopt a strategy of continuous improvements towards the elimination of those fuels,” and promised to work with Forestethics to trace the sources of its fuel and seek alternative suppliers.
There is nothing ambiguous about the letter, and especially the word “elimination.”
Nevertheless, the ensuing uproar in Canada, and especially in Alberta, together with a campaign for a boycott of Chiquita products, sent the company spinning into denial mode. It was, according to Chiquita vicepresident Manuel Rodriguez, all a misunderstanding and “Chiquita is not boycotting or banning Canadian oil. Today, Chiquita sources and will continue to source Canadian oil.”
Unfortunately, Chiquita’s clarification isn’t very clear. David Maclean of the Alberta Enterprise Group says that his body is satisfied that the company has dropped its anti-oil stance, but nevertheless describes the new position as “pretty mealy mouthed.”
Chiquita’s new position remains overtly hostile.
Company spokesman Ed Loyd clarified the clarification by stating, “I would say that our focus globally is avoiding carbon-intensive fuel supplies wherever possible . . . We have encouraged our suppliers to source various fuel sources that have a lower carbon footprint.”
In short, notwithstanding its half-hearted denials, Chiquita is still comfortably in bed with the environmental extortionists of Forestethics, who raise funds on the premise that “the tarsands pose a severe threat to our forests, air, water, health, and climate,” and that Alberta produces “dirty oil.”
Forestethics unabashedly wants to shut down what has become the economic engine, not only of Alberta, but of Canada.
Anger toward Chiquita has spread well beyond the borders of Alberta. In a furious letter to the company, David Bradley, president of the mighty Canadian Trucking Alliance, which represents thousands of trucking companies and independent owner-operators, describes himself as “utterly amazed that (Chiquita) would be so uninformed on the facts regarding the environmental realities of the oilsands.”
He questioned why Chiquita has decided that being beholden to despotic Middle Eastern or Venezuelan regimes is preferable to oilsands production. “I just think that’s crazy,” he said. He also pointed out the obvious: that truckers on the road have no way of knowing which fuels have oilsands content.
Chiquita Brands trying to sell itself as a company with a social conscience is beyond ironic. Chiquita is, after all, the successor to United Fruit Co., the ruthless predator that drove peasants from their lands, terrorized its workers, bribed officials at every level and controlled Central American governments to such a degree that it caused the phrase banana republic to become part of the English language.
To those apologists who maintain that it’s unfair to smear Chiquita with the tar brush of history, I offer a couple of anecdotes. Not many years ago, in Costa Rica, I was puzzled by the big plastic bags draped around banana bunches on a Chiquita plantation. A local peasant farmer explained to me that each bag contained a tiny dollop of powerful fungicide. He then volunteered that his sons needed jobs, but wouldn’t work for the fruit company because of its casual attitude toward dangerous chemicals. The men who applied the treated bags to the bananas, he said, suffered from headaches, dizziness, skin rashes and even nervous twitches.
In the tropics, I am a prodigious eater of bananas, but, with my tongue only partially in cheek, I told him that, if what he was telling me was true, I would change my eating habits. His unforgettable response was that I needn’t worry, because plantation bananas are all exported.
Four years ago, Chiquita was fined $25 million in a U.S. court for paying $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group during the period 1997 to 2004. In the course of the investigation, the company admitted that, prior to 1997, it had paid protection money to leftist FARC guerrillas. When right wing paramilitaries moved into Chiquita’s territory, payments were shifted to them, and FARC ceased to be a problem. Nobody knows how many guerillas were eliminated or how many innocents were collateral casualties.
Notwithstanding Chiquita’s half-hearted backtracking, the boycotting of its products should continue for two reasons. First, Canadians can continue to show their distaste for bananas with blood on them. Second, a message needs to be sent to the corporate world that yielding to threats from powerful environmental organizations can have unpleasant consequences.
SDA just sank the banana boat.
The only people to suffer are teachers who had to use cucumbers in sex ed classes.
It would be interesting to see how much money they have lost?
Our boycott of Chiquita and Coke Cola products will continue.
Posted by: Ken (Kulak) at January 5, 2012 6:20 PM
Why the coke ban? Is it for the stupid white Christmas can, their support of WWF, or both?
Pepsi is looking good right now
mhb23re
I wouldn’t trust Chiquita now anyway. They were sneaky and underhanded in the way they first defended themselves. My boycott will continue as well.
Chiquita’s so-called back-track is just the same worn-out talking points that the other firms used. Their response is pretty much word for word what Bed Bath & Beyond, Avon and Levis Straus used when confronted. Most likely the talking points were provided by Forest Ethics to all of these firms for when the back-lash came flying.
As far as I’m concerned, Chiquita and the rest are still on board with the eco-fascists.
Until I see a full page advertisment in the newspaper denouncing Forest Ethics and apologising for taking the misguided stand, I will continue to boycott these firms.
It should be noted that Walgreens and Concord Transport refused to back down. In the case of Concord Transport they have a lot of gall continuing to come out West. But that is typical of an arrogant Quebec firm.
I could give a sweet goddamn about what Chiquita is saying now trying to backtrack.
I will NEVER buy another Chiquita brand of anything again.
@ mhb, both. I first noticed that Coke was in bed with the eco-fascists during the Copenhagen AGW love in when their website had a WWF logo on it and they were proud of sponsoring the Copenhagen BS fest.
Too late bitches. I will never eat a chiquita again, never mind buy one.
I will be continuing my boycott of Chiquita, oil or no oil. It’s their human rights record in Central and South America that I became more aware of as a result of the oil kerfuffle that disgusts me the most.
I am finished buying chiquita, and coke products and also shopping at any super market controled by Loblaws.I refuse to pay that jerk Galen Weston 5 cents a bag in order to have my groceries put in plastic that allows me to carry them out of his store.The supposed justification for this is that the money is going to the World Wildlife Fund.
The WWF is a far left wing organization that is more concerned with social engineering than they are with the welfare of animals.If I want to support any charitable organization whether it be the WWF or the Salvation Army it should be voluntary not extorted from me at the cash register by employees of one of the richest families in Canada.
I love Ezra!
Hey Chiquita! ¡Chinga tú madre!
So how many of us that got laptops or whatever for the ‘Holiday season’ (Christmas) are going to return those new HP computers to wherever for some other make. Hewlett continues to give large quantities of cash to the Ecowackos who are against the proposed pipelines south and west.
Again it is time vote with live ammo – our wallets!