Guido Barilla is chairman of Barilla pasta. You can find his namesake pasta at Oak Park places like Jewel. Signore Barilla has been making some rather inflammatory comments about his product and gay people:
“I would never do an advert with a homosexual family.”
“”I have no respect for adoption by gay families.”
“If gays don’t like it, they can eat another brand.”
But does it make sense to boycott the company this guy owns and which provides half the world’s pasta and one-quarter of the pasta in the United States?
If you’re trying to hurt this company, then buying some other brand of pasta is a preposterous strategy for vengeance. Every grocery in Oak Park-River Forest could take Barilla off its shelves with virtually no measurable impact on the company’s bottom line.
But that’s not why I’m not buying Barilla pasta, which I have bought in the past and which is not, from a culinary perspective, bad pasta. In fact, I like it just fine.
I just don’t want to have anything to do with a company whose primary spokesperson seems so unpleasant.
Now, look into the history of many of your favorite companies, and no doubt you’ll find a lot of ugliness.
Did you know Coca-Cola used to be marketed specifically to white people?
Love your cute little VW? Yeah, so did Hitler.
But Coke and VW’s unpleasant history is past. Does it make sense to boycott Barilla, today, in Oak Park?
I can’t provide any definitive guidance, but when I go to buy pasta, my tendency will be to not buy pasta from a company that seems to be so aggressively on the wrong side of history.
My purchasing choice will have zero impact on the company or its profitability, but I’m still going to avoid Barilla products because buying such products would make me feel like a schmuck.
So, Guido, paisano, this is where me and my family part ways from your product. It’s not you. It’s me. Um, no, actually, come to think of it, it’s you.
