During a dinner with the French ambassador the British King Charles II. let them serve a pineapple for dessert and he even cut it himself. Today such a scene would seem almost hilarious but in 1670 this was a very serious and unique demonstration of royal glory. The fancy pineapple dessert was a symbolic act that stressed the aspirations of the Empire.
It’s hard to believe, but the fruit that 200 years later became a commodity for the masses and until today can be found even at the lowest rated hotel buffets and on the most disgusting pizza, once was a symbol of royal highness and the ultimate power.
The King’s gesture also had another effect. Today you would call it a well executed “celebrity influencer” marketing move. Fostered by those events, upper class people started to pay astronomus prices for the fruit just to show off their wealth and importance. There even were “pineapple rental businesses” popping up because apparently just showing the fancy fruit at your birthday party was amazing enough. This attraction was also inspiring artists and architects who used the form of the fruit in paintings, objects and building designs.
Why were pineapples so scarce in the 17th and 18th century?
Originally, the plants were growing in Southern America and on the Pacific and Caribbean Islands. When seamen took them on the long trips on their ships to Europe most of them were rotten. So, from the few remaining fruits that arrived at the Kings castle his gardener tried to cultivate plants that would produce fruits in the Royal garden. Other royal houses in Europe would do the same. There even was a high end prestige horticulture scene across Europe where gardeners of aristocrats and very rich people competed for a successful pineapple reproduction. Those who managed to do this were regarded as superstars, drowned in flattery and their seat in the gardener heaven was assured.
This game was ended at the beginning of the 19th century by a technological innovation that slowly ended the scarcity of the tasty fruit. Sailing ships started being equipped with steam engines and the time for shipping pineapples from their natural habitats to Europe had been significantly reduced. As a result, even the most sophisticated reproduction attempt let the Royal gardeners stand in the rain.
Over the decades, the once untouchable fruit lost their prestige. Upper class people were shocked when pineapple recipes found their way into 19th century cooking books for middle class housewives.
Later in the history of the pineapple business entrepreneurs perfected the production and distribution methods by peeling, cutting and canning the fruits after harvest and before shipping. Most famously, at the beginning of the 20th century, by James Drummond Dole who shipped his cans from Hawaii to mainland USA. Accompanied by large advertising campaigns and sponsorships of allied troops during the two world wars Dole created a canned fruit empire. Cans with his name are still available in supermarkets across the globe until today.
Medieval gardeners surely turned over in their graves as Dole seemed to have won the ultimate pineapple championship. He managed to win in a low margin commodity business by mastering production, marketing and distribution.
From untouchable to ubiquitous – What can we learn from the exotic fruit?
When you are the gardener or the inventor of a new process:
Beware of the rules and events that have the power of changing your game completely.
With one invention all of your former efforts for the progress of humanity can be made redundant. Accessibility to pineapples was not guaranteed to stay as limited as it was in the 17th century.
Needless to say that every thing, object or service can become a simple commodity due to technological progress. Production costs will fall and the output will grow and margins will shrink which will kick out people working with traditional, older methods (e.g. pineapple gardening in glasshouses) out of business.
What could royal gardeners have done to stay unique? By growing pineapples they clearly had acquired invaluable skills in reproducing rare plant species. The next plants attracting the rich and famous were just around the corner. Orchids for instance once were impossible to breed on European ground 100 years ago – where they are now available in every store.
Stay unique by constantly improving your skills and system – independent from your business.
From J.D. Dole, we can learn how to make business with a commodity but own the production, marketing & distribution in a way that it lets you have enough margin for building an empire.
The power of a brand must shine for itself independent from the commodity it advertises.
There are more consumer good producers that have been following this principle very successfully for over 100 years (E.g. CocaCola, Mars, Wrigley’s..). It’s very hard to achieve but not impossible.
Now, let’s have a Piña Colada. Cheers!