Peet’s Coffee Thinks You’re Stupid

…or at least not very important.

Following up on my posts concerning Peet’s membership on the California Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors (here and here; Eric follows up with a left hook here), another one of our intrepid readers e-mailed Peet’s to get an explanation.  Here’s what the reader got back:

Peet’s is one of more than 15,000 member companies (including many other coffee companies and retailers) of the California Chamber of Commerce.  As a California-based business, with the majority of our people, stores and customers also in this state, we believe it is important to have a voice in the state-wide business community.

Well, I suppose that that’s better than simply ignoring the issue, which was the strategy of the previous response.  But at best, this is playing dumb.  The point isn’t that Peet’s is a member of the Chamber, which is bad enough: the point is that it is on the Board of Directors.  To hide behind “15,000 member companies” is, well, pretty weak tea.  One could well ask how stupid Peet’s PR department thinks we are.

Now, in fairness, our correspondent didn’t specifically mention the company’s membership on the board: instead, he simply said noted that Peet’s is a “leading member.”  But if the Peet’s flacks bothered to investigate even a little, they would have realized that their employer is on the board.  And if they chose not to come clean on that, then that means Peet’s has something to hide.

And if Peet’s has something to hide from us, maybe we should hide our dollars from them.

California Chamber of Commerce, greenwashing, Peet's Coffee