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Seth Goldman: Mayor Bloomberg and Our 16.9-Ounce Tea
Wall Street Journal ^ | July 22, 2012 | Seth Goldman

Posted on 07/23/2012 9:49:45 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Is 16.9 oz. the perfect size? Who knows? We willingly submit to the unforgiving judgment of the market.

As a fellow entrepreneur with a public-service orientation, I have been a longtime admirer of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to acting on his principles. Having launched Honest Tea 14 years ago with five thermoses and a belief that consumers were thirsty for a lower-calorie natural and organic beverage, I appreciate all he has accomplished. However, I write today as an entrepreneur frustrated by a proposal that arbitrarily complicates the practical realities of commerce.

When the mayor announced his proposal to ban sugar-sweetened drinks in portions over 16 ounces from New York City restaurants, many of my friends assumed Honest Tea would welcome the news as a public initiative to complement Honest Tea's long-standing commitment to marketing lower-calorie drinks. Yet the mayor's proposal would actually prevent Honest Tea from selling most of our drinks in New York City restaurants.

Under the proposed changes to Article 81 of the NYC Health Code, food-service establishments would not be able to sell packages larger than 16 ounces for drinks that have more than 25 calories per eight-ounce serving. Honest Tea's top-selling item is our organic Honey Green Tea, which has 35 calories per eight-ounce serving and is in a 16.9 oz. bottle. We label 70 calories on the front of the package so consumers know what's in the full bottle.

We initially went with 16.9 oz. (which is 500 milliliters) because it is a standard size that our bottle supplier had in stock at the time. We subsequently invested several hundred thousand dollars for 16.9 oz. bottle molds. Is 16.9 ounces the perfect size? Who knows? As a beverage marketer, we willingly submit to the unforgiving judgment of the market. What we did not

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; US: New York
KEYWORDS: newyorkcity; soda; tea
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1 posted on 07/23/2012 9:49:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway
Having launched Honest Tea 14 years ago with five thermoses and a belief that consumers were thirsty for a lower-calorie natural and organic beverage

You didn't build that . . . .

2 posted on 07/23/2012 9:57:17 PM PDT by FoxInSocks ("Hope is not a course of action." -- M. O'Neal, USMC)
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To: nickcarraway

This is a nannydom which isn’t even sane. That slightly-too-large bottle of tea has the same calories as six ounces of regular Coke. Now it’s possible that lobbying could get the ordinance modified to allow for either a maximum volume or a maximum calorie count. But ultimately that misses the point.


3 posted on 07/23/2012 9:57:26 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew (or is that lou?))
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To: nickcarraway
As a fellow entrepreneur with a public-service orientation, I have been a longtime admirer of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to acting on his principles...... I appreciate all he has accomplished.

Well, there's two strikes right there suck-up boy.

However, I write today as an entrepreneur frustrated by a proposal that arbitrarily complicates the practical realities of commerce.

Sucks to be you then, still an admirer and appreciator, hmm?

4 posted on 07/23/2012 9:57:59 PM PDT by libertarian27 (Check my profile page for the FReeper Online Cookbook 2011)
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To: libertarian27

Straddling that fence has got to hurt.


5 posted on 07/23/2012 9:59:38 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew (or is that lou?))
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Maybe people who used to drink the 16.9 ounces of tea, will switch to drinking a few smaller cokes...


6 posted on 07/23/2012 10:11:39 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Maybe they can get the ordinance modified to a maximum “none of government’s damned business” count.


7 posted on 07/23/2012 10:13:43 PM PDT by LouD (I stand with Scott Walker)
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To: nickcarraway

Waiting for the 450ml cup.

And as for “Seth” -— Hey man, you back’em, you rides with’em! (A little cheese with that whinne!)


8 posted on 07/23/2012 10:14:13 PM PDT by TaMoDee ( Lassez les bons temps rouler dans les 2012! Allez Pack!)
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To: nickcarraway
One of my favorite Honest Tea bottle-cap quotes is the Chinese proverb "If we don't change the direction in which we are headed, we will end up where we are going."

Mayor Bloomberg's favorite Chinese proverb is "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Which is why he can order you around about your tea and also why he wants to make sure no one else has any guns.

9 posted on 07/23/2012 10:15:11 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (You only have three billion heartbeats in a lifetime.How many does the government claim as its own?)
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To: LouD

This tea thing sure illustrates the ridiculousness of it all. If there can be a Bull Moose party why not a Big Gulp Of Freedom party? Challenge that RINO Bloomberg on his own turf.


10 posted on 07/23/2012 10:18:12 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew (or is that lou?))
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To: nickcarraway
Bloomberg hates metric!!!
Of course, he's an Imperial mayor!
11 posted on 07/23/2012 10:19:27 PM PDT by Tanniker Smith (Rome didn't fall in a day, either.)
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To: libertarian27

Those were pretty much my thoughts as I read this asskisser’s words. What does around comes around.


12 posted on 07/23/2012 10:19:45 PM PDT by A_Former_Democrat
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To: A_Former_Democrat

goes, of course you mean


13 posted on 07/23/2012 10:23:15 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew (or is that lou?))
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To: Tanniker Smith

He can’t be all that Imperial. If he were, he’d have picked an Imperial pint (20 fl. oz. or 568 ml for any metric types) as the size cut-off.


14 posted on 07/23/2012 10:24:00 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: Tanniker Smith

Isn’t the actual Imperial (old British) measure a bit more generous than the American one?


15 posted on 07/23/2012 10:24:13 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew (or is that lou?))
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To: libertarian27; TaMoDee; A_Former_Democrat

I guess none of you considered the possibility he wrote that intro as a rhetorical device? Possibly as a conciliation of what was to follow, or tongue-in-cheek?


16 posted on 07/23/2012 10:25:37 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Shut up, pal, Nanny Bloomberg knows what’s good for you.


17 posted on 07/24/2012 1:45:04 AM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: HiTech RedNeck

The whole thing is ridiculous. What is to stop 7-11 from having a special on TWO 15 oz. drinks that are “two for the same price” and it comes with “a large cup”. The consumer can do with that what he will...
Libtards are such idiots. The same people that say building a fence won’t do any good because they will just go sell ladders insist that more gun control laws will reduce violence. The know it won’t. It will however turn some 40 million of us into criminals overnight. Then they can do what they will, too.


18 posted on 07/24/2012 4:35:22 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: nickcarraway

A government big enough to take your ice tea because the bottle is 0.9 ounces too big is big enough to take everything you have. What happened to America that we are willing to let government decide how much water our toilets can flush, how big a drink we are allowed to buy, how marriage will be redefined, and what our ministers say from the pulpit?


19 posted on 07/24/2012 5:20:54 AM PDT by Pollster1 (Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. - Ronald Reagan)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Notice how he takes a chunk of his column to go through the fiction that his 16.9 ounce bottle is ‘two servings’, and so there are actually only 35 calories per serving in his product?


20 posted on 07/24/2012 6:10:20 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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