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Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

nytimes.com

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Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#111

Post by sbierwagen »

whyenot wrote: post #106
wavefunction wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or how they steal public water and sell it while also claiming to not be subject to the laws governing that water.[0] [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36161580

Your linked article does not support your assertions that they are "stealing" water. By the way, the 36 million gallons mentioned in the article is about 110 acre feet, or the same amount of water used to irrigate a 25-50 acre almond orchard (depending on location). It's nothing, and it's being used as drinking water, not to wash cars, water lawns, fill swimming pools or any of the other more wasteful ways people use…

Saying 36 million gallons of water "is nothing" is certainly a bold stance.

The federal government is charging Nestlé $524 for 36,000,000 gal of water. I just checked, and that same amount of water would cost me $303,689 from my local utility.

I entirely fail to see why Nestle should get a huge discount for water that is then sold to American citizens at $1.79 a gallon, for a 122,976% markup.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#112

Post by jamestimmins »

manachar wrote: post #101
jamestimmins wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally distinguish between 1)Human Rights, 2) rights as a member of a specific society, and 3) simply things that are "right" to do for peoples in the moral sense. 1. Something that can't be taken away by someone else. 2. A contract between an individual and the country/state with which they are a citizen. In return for paying taxes and following laws, they can expect services, utilities, military, education, e…

Using your definition, there's no such thing as human rights. Life, liberty, and property are all things that are only guaranteed by societal standards and enforcement. Murder, theft, and enslavement is the norm where the rule of law and enshrinement of rights are absent. Much of the US enslaved human beings for hundreds of years - liberty is clearly only something we get by being a member of a specific society.

Well my assumption is that liberty, life, and property are things that can be taken away.

edit: I may have misunderstood your comment. I mean that human rights are things that are violated by taking them away, not failing to give them to you. So while life can be taken from you, doing so would violate human rights. Whereas arguing that internet is a human right doesn't work with this model, because the current violation of that 'right' doesn't just result from someone taking something away, but from someone failing to give it to you.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#113

Post by mikenyc »

pdog wrote: post #64

> The rapidly expanding niche accounts for 15 to 20 percent of coffee consumed in the United States, according to the Specialty Coffee Association. One in every five or six cups of coffee is Blue Bottle or "third-wave specialty" coffee? This simply can't be true considering the scale of Starbucks, McDonald's, and Dunkin' Donuts, let alone brewing at home and coffee consumed at diners and non-specialty restaurants. I'…

Mike from craftcoffee.com here. I love 3rd wave style coffee but that statement from the article is very misleading. This is a common trick that 3rd wave proponents pull all the time. They conflate "3rd wave" and "specialty", as Oliver did here, and then pretend that "specialty coffee" metrics are referring to only 3rd wave coffee. In actual fact, 3rd wave != specialty coffee. In reality, 3rd wave coffee is just a tiny fraction of specialty coffee. Specialty coffee includes Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Peet's, and many others like that. All those companies sell "specialty grade" coffee, which is a technical term that more or less means the beans score above a certain level when evaluated for defects. So when people quote the size or growth of specialty coffee, that's the pool of companies they are actually talking about. And in fact, depending on the source it's often unclear if those numbers include things like frapuccinos. There's very little data on the niche because it's so small that it doesn't make the top 25 or 30 sources of revenue or consumption in industry reports, but 3rd wave coffee certainly accounts for less than 1% of coffee consumed in the US. Blue Bottle has 25 cafes, Starbucks has 24,000.[1] Starbucks is worth $80B today. In aggregate, Blue Bottle + Stumptown + Intelligentsia + [any other locals you can think of] are likely worth less than $1B. So yeah, 3rd wave coffee is delicious and fun, but unfortunately it simply does not account for that level of consumption.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#114

Post by slavik81 »

sbierwagen wrote: post #111
whyenot wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your linked article does not support your assertions that they are "stealing" water. By the way, the 36 million gallons mentioned in the article is about 110 acre feet, or the same amount of water used to irrigate a 25-50 acre almond orchard (depending on location). It's nothing, and it's being used as drinking water, not to wash cars, water lawns, fill swimming pools or any of the other more wasteful ways people use…

Saying 36 million gallons of water "is nothing" is certainly a bold stance. The federal government is charging Nestlé $524 for 36,000,000 gal of water. I just checked, and that same amount of water would cost me $303,689 from my local utility. I entirely fail to see why Nestle should get a huge discount for water that is then sold to American citizens at $1.79 a gallon, for a 122,976% markup.

The price you're quoting from your utility likely includes water treatment, transport of the water to your home, transport of wastewater from your home, and wastewater treatment. I would be surprised if you're paying anything significant for the water itself.

It very well may be that Nestle (and many other companies) are under-paying for their water rights, but I don't think you're comparing apples to apples.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#115

Post by mrgordon »

brm wrote: post #25
mrleiter wrote: post #12

As this thread will ultimately will end up discussing the corporate evil that Nestlé apparently is, I want to, for the sake of the discussion, point out the reasonableness of the CEOs statement regarding water as a human right: He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. Of course a state can also do this and in my opinion should, but of course as…

He might have a point on water, but... Where are his statements on their practices regarding infant formula, the use of child slavery for chocolate, the use of general slavery in their seafood production in Thailand, and the intimidation of workers who wish to unionize in India?

brm hits the nail on the head. Their infant formula practices alone are horrible enough to boycott their entire business. For anyone that isn't familiar, they convince people in developing nations to switch to free infant formula so they stop breastfeeding long enough that they stop lactating and must purchase expensive formula instead. The mothers often can't make the formula hygienically either due to poor quality water or other unsanitary conditions so it can lead to many problems.

More info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott#Baby_milk_issue

RIP Blue Bottle and long live Philz, Four Barrel, etc.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#116

Post by chrissnell »

sbierwagen wrote: post #111
whyenot wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your linked article does not support your assertions that they are "stealing" water. By the way, the 36 million gallons mentioned in the article is about 110 acre feet, or the same amount of water used to irrigate a 25-50 acre almond orchard (depending on location). It's nothing, and it's being used as drinking water, not to wash cars, water lawns, fill swimming pools or any of the other more wasteful ways people use…

Saying 36 million gallons of water "is nothing" is certainly a bold stance. The federal government is charging Nestlé $524 for 36,000,000 gal of water. I just checked, and that same amount of water would cost me $303,689 from my local utility. I entirely fail to see why Nestle should get a huge discount for water that is then sold to American citizens at $1.79 a gallon, for a 122,976% markup.

That water would cost you $300K because your utility has to source it, store it for year-round availability, pipe it from remote mountain streams to your house, maintain all of that pipe, keep it clean, bill you, occasionally collect past-due balances from your neighbors, maitain a customer service center, employ unionized pipeline maintenance crews, buy the heavy equipment used by those crews, maintain that equipment, pay the unionized mechanics who maintain that heavy equipment, employ a security team to protect the safety of the system, etc., etc., etc. Running a public utility and running a bottling plant aren't the same sport.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#117

Post by mrgordon »

acchow wrote: post #15
diogenescynic wrote: post #2

That's a major bummer. Nestle is one of the most evil companies there is--their CEO once said water isn't a human right. Nestle uses cocoa from slave labor and bottle water in drought stricken communities and national forests on expired permits, and do shady stuff like hiring the regulator who gave them their water license. Very few companies are as vile and amoral as Nestle. Unfortunately, this will taint Blue Bottl…

Philz is not really an alternative to Blue Bottle - they don't roast their own beans, they don't make espresso.

This is quite inaccurate. From Philz' website:

"Here at Philz, we roast our own coffees at our roasting plant in Oakland, California."

https://www.philzcoffee.com/our-coffee

They obviously don't do espresso drinks but there are about 1,000 places in San Francisco that do (Four Barrel, Ritual, Stanza, etc. etc.)

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#118

Post by whyenot »

sbierwagen wrote: post #111
whyenot wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your linked article does not support your assertions that they are "stealing" water. By the way, the 36 million gallons mentioned in the article is about 110 acre feet, or the same amount of water used to irrigate a 25-50 acre almond orchard (depending on location). It's nothing, and it's being used as drinking water, not to wash cars, water lawns, fill swimming pools or any of the other more wasteful ways people use…

Saying 36 million gallons of water "is nothing" is certainly a bold stance. The federal government is charging Nestlé $524 for 36,000,000 gal of water. I just checked, and that same amount of water would cost me $303,689 from my local utility. I entirely fail to see why Nestle should get a huge discount for water that is then sold to American citizens at $1.79 a gallon, for a 122,976% markup.

> I entirely fail to see why Nestle should get a huge discount for water that is then sold to American citizens at $1.79 a gallon, for a 122,976% markup.

Well, when you phrase it that way it sounds terrible, but it's a completely bogus comparison. A retail water user is paying not just for the water but more importantly for it's storage and delivery to their doorstep. That increasers the price. You also are not buying in bulk. If you were, you would only be paying $50-200 an acre foot as most California farmers do to have water stored and delivered to their farms. Nestle is only paying for access to a water source. Is $524 too low a fee for a permit? Yeah, probably, but the company isn't "stealing" water, and compared to what farmers pay for similar amounts of water isn't not that that different.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#119

Post by mrgordon »

dkhenry wrote: post #16
diogenescynic wrote: post #2

That's a major bummer. Nestle is one of the most evil companies there is--their CEO once said water isn't a human right. Nestle uses cocoa from slave labor and bottle water in drought stricken communities and national forests on expired permits, and do shady stuff like hiring the regulator who gave them their water license. Very few companies are as vile and amoral as Nestle. Unfortunately, this will taint Blue Bottl…

You can do much better the Philz, depending on where you are at there are lots of good options. In you're in the bay area look up Four Barrel, they roast great beans and their SF coffee shop is really nice.

Everyone is welcome to a preference of course, but I wonder why you assert Four Barrel is "much better" than Philz. If we're talking about non-espresso drinks, I know many people who prefer Philz. They have a huge variety of custom roasts and make remarkable ice coffee with cream. I like Four Barrel too, just surprised to see Philz dismissed out of hand. Most people who come to visit me in San Francisco end up going home with a bag of Philz' beans after trying a bunch of the third wave shops.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#120

Post by mrgordon »

cortesoft wrote: post #14
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget pushing "free" baby formula on new mothers in developing countries, so their milk supply dries up.

Yeah, that was pretty awful. They pushed formula as being more healthy, which it isn't, and it was made extra bad because they did so in countries that didn't have clean water. Adults in those countries have built up somewhat of an immunity to the diseases in the water, but infants don't have that (they get it from their mother's milk!) So parents mixed the water with the formula, giving their infants diseases they d…

You wrote this in past tense but sadly they're still doing it :(
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