Ocean Spray denies being acquisition target

7/26/99 Denying reports in Cranberry Stressline, Ocean Spray spokesman Chris Phillips stated, in an article in the July 25, 1999 Sunday Boston Globe South Weekly, "Gadfly* on the Web tweaks Ocean Spray" by Davis Bushnell, that Pepsico and other corporations are not interested in acquiring the cooperative. Phillips is quoted as saying that Stressline's "speculation about Pepsico is inaccurate...we look at companies from time to time, companies look at us. But we're moving forward as Ocean Spray." At least one such company hired the top tier consulting company, The Boston Consulting Group (see story), to interview Ocean Spray growers in Massachusetts and Wisconsin about their opinions about the cooperative and how they would feel about an acquisition. Stressline stands by the suggestion that companies may be more than merely looking at an Ocean Spray acquisition.

* A gadfly, according to Webster's New   World College Dictionary: is "a person who annoys others, esp. by rousing them from complacency"