Goldman: Honest Tea recalled all product in 2003 over broken glass
Seth Goldman · Honest Tea: Seth Goldman · Jan 16, 2017 · at 15:36
Seth Goldman, co-founder and former CEO of Honest Tea, discusses a near-fatal packaging failure in 2003 when defective glass slipped through bottling quality controls into Whole Foods stores.
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“So in 2003 we had a delivery of glass that was faulty. And there were a lot of blisters in the glass. Literally, you could look at it and see little bubbles. And so we ran it on the production line, and the way the line works is that if it ever sees a defect in the bottle, it's supposed to kick it out, reject the bottle. But the line didn't do that, and so we ended up with some product in the marketplace that had broken glass inside the bottle. In fact, two different Whole Foods stores, and Whole Foods has a rule, three strikes on your own. Fortunately, no one got hurt or injured, but We did have bottles with pieces of broken glass in them, and we, ah, knew we couldn't afford as a business to lose our largest customer. So we voluntarily withdrew all product from the market. Everywhere. Not just Whole Foods. Everywhere.”
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