Imagine you run a juice company and you’re buying Oranges from another salesman. You place an order for a 1,000 barrel of Oranges. The Orange Salesman agrees and the next day you arrive to pick up your barrel of oranges.
Before you shake hands and leave you decide to inspect one of the barrels. Upon reaching into the barrel to inspect it, you pull out a tangerine. You point this out to the salesmen and their response is “oh sorry about that but a few must have gotten caught up in the barreling process.”
Upon reaching into it again, you pull out a mandarin. You point this out to him and their response is “it shouldn’t matter, they all look alike with a similar taste.”
The salesman insists that despite finding a few tangerines and a few mandarins that the barrel is mostly oranges.
The problem is your factory juicers cannot distinguish between each the three and would inevitably mix it all together once a barrel is processed.
If you have integrity, you know this ruins your business model because you need 100% orange juice to sell. If you don’t have integrity, then you’ll sell it as 100% orange juice because you believe the buyers wouldn’t care or notice the difference.
You come to a conclusion with the seller.
Relabel the barrel as a barrel of Fruit and lower the price since the integrity of the barrel is compromised and there’s no way to know the composition of each barrel.
You both shake hands and make this deal.
When you get back to your factory, you realize that some of the oranges were really bigger tangerines being labeled oranges, and that only a few oranges were in the inspected barrel. You also realize that there were not just mandarins but also there were grapefruits being labeled mandarins in there. You discover that the 1000 barrels of oranges you purchased must all contain a mixture of tangerines, oranges, mandarins, and a few grapefruits.
Your production process cannot separate them and once processed the result will be a blended juice.
You now face a choice
Label the product accurately as Mixed Citrus Juice to reflect what it truly contains even if it challenges expectations and affects your business.
or
Continue labeling it as 100% Orange Juice to maintain consistency, protect your brand, and avoid confusion, even though you know it isn’t entirely accurate.
What do you do?
