In light of the holiday season, TeamPOAA invites owners to ponder The Quest of the Magi Christmas carol, more commonly known today as We Three Kings of Orient Are, which in 1857 was originally entitled: Three Kings of Orient. The lyrics refer to the biblical story of priestly rulers from the mysterious Far East being inspired to follow the Star of Bethlehem to meet the newborn King of Kings. The Christmas Star is especially inspirational because it will not only adorn Christmas trees all over the world, but there also will be a spectacularly rare celestial event this year. While many believe that the Star of Wonder miraculously appeared to shine divine light on the humble birth of Christ, scientists and others believe it was actually a supernova explosion or comet that led the three magi to the manger where historical Jesus was born. Johannes Kepler, the legendary German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer, believed the miraculous star was actually the planetary conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Venus, and for the first time in 800 years, Jupiter and Saturn will align and shine brightly like the Star of Wonder for anyone to see from anywhere on Earth where skies are clear on December 21, 2020. 

The former DSD owner who PF hired and CPB transformed into a superstar corporate executive, Vice President of Partner Brands & Sales Strategy/Initiatives for the Campbell Snacks Division, Kyle Jordan, emailed owners a Product Supply Update that explains CPB’s quarterly SEC filing and media outlets recently reported about the reasons for PF’s holiday cookie crisis - but are those reasons Nothing But The Whole Truth?  It is interesting to note that just as VP Jordan’s first Product Supply Update was an excellent example of a Half-Truth, his second update introduces another type of fallacy known as argumentum ad verecundiam (Argument from Authority) - insisting that a claim is true simply because a valid authority on the issue said it was true, without any other supporting evidence offered to address. Even more interesting than pointing owners to authoritative news reports that simply quote CPB executive explanations for PF’s cookie supply crisis is the relevant disclosure that consumer demand for PF cookies was up by 8.7% as of November 1, 2020.

Finally learning something meaningful about the demand variable of the proportional allocation formula raises lots of other critical questions such as: Why are DSD owners from all over the country still reporting weekly caps and cuts of up to 50% when demand is up only 8.7%? Are PF’s protracted labor problems so dire that there is more than a 41.3% reduction in its production capabilities? How can outsourcing cookie production be an option - but for the secret recipes? What is the correlation between an owner's historical sales volume and their weekly DSD orders based on current consumer demand in their exclusive sales territories? How does monitoring promotions help DSD owners when current demand is still exceeding PF’s ability to fulfill weekly DSD orders? Why is CPB using trade spend to support PF cookie promotions for its own central warehouse accounts while it cannot even produce enough cookie supply to fulfill our weekly DSD orders?
 

 

Remember that asking and answering a lot of questions is not only a great way to hone your critical thinking skills, but apparently the only way owners will find the whole truth about PF promoting the exact same best-selling varieties through central warehouse sales and deliveries for itself while continuing to cap and cut our weekly DSD orders.

 

Rather than continue to respond individually to the many owners who reported that PF managers are misleading their chain accounts that in-store shortages are the fault of owners, we recommend that anyone dealing with that issue simply set the record straight by sharing the 2 Product Supply Updates from VP Jordan, and also reporting that misconduct to CPB executives in writing.