Coke vs. Pepsi. Bud Light vs. conservatives. That's old news. The newest product battle is in the olive oil market, where two companies are battling over the brilliant idea of using plastic squeeze bottle packaging.
Drupely Inc., which does business as Graza, attracted attention in the usually sleepy olive oil market when it started offering product in easy-to-use plastic squeeze bottles — similar to the Sriracha sauce.
Seemed like a good idea. I'm sure most cooks use a lot more Sriracha than if it came in a conventional glass bottle. Why not encourage them to use the olive oil and not just admire the pretty package?
But then California-based competitor Brightland Inc. came out with its own squeeze bottle, and the battle was on. Fast Company reported that Drupely co-founder and CEO Andrew Benin wrote what it called "an explosive post" on LinkedIn, accusing Brightland of introducing a copycat product.
"… We are told to hush, not be rash, and that this is ultimate flattery and validation that we are onto something special. The issue is, thousands of hours of work, years of unpaid efforts, and taking enormous risks are the inputs necessary to do this, so personally, I think it's OK to get miffed when folks rip you off," Benin wrote.
Sounds like he's been reading some of the comments on LinkedIn posts related to plastics policy in Washington, D.C. LinkedIn may be the social media site for professionals, but it's not always friendly!
But I digress. Within a day, Benin amended for the first post, saying, "I want to apologize for letting my emotions get the best of me. I was heated, and reacted poorly, and have learned from the variety of comments that everyone has left today. Thank you to everyone for your candor, and for showing me that there was clearly a better way to address all of this."
So, it's all ended well, and plastic blow molders can go back to tackling new applications for plastic squeeze bottles. How about peanut butter?