“Adapt or Die.” - This historical business example has a great lesson for business builders like you!
Each Friday, I am bringing you my own voice on a certain topic or event that I find useful in my everyday business life and personal life. I hope my own experiences and personal interests will also help you in your own pursuits. This week in particular, I am sharing with you a business lesson I learned from history. As someone with a passion for learning and reflecting on past events, I believe history is a great teacher that helps us reflect on how we approach our current-day realities. I’m confident this historical business lesson will guide you towards successfully building your brand and your career. Keep reading to find out this major business lesson I learned from history. As business builders, you ought to know this too.
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“Adapt or Die.” - This historical business example has a great lesson for business builders like you! Adapt or Die The years 2019 to 2022 are full of major changes for us all, especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these years, we’ve seen the impact the work from home setup has had on our personal, professional, and financial lives. There are times when uncertainty settles in too… and during these moments, I believe it’s helpful to reflect on the things that happened in the past. Yes, the world is moving rapidly, but I’m a firm believer that pausing and focusing on how to solve the problems confronting us today has positive impacts in our lives. As a business builder, I learned everything I do today through personal experience, expert mentorship, examples, and history. So today, I would like to share with you the lesson of “Adapt or Die” through the historical example of the juice company Welch’s.
Like many of you, I enjoy a sweet glass of juice every once in a while. Whether it’s before a workout for an extra energy boost or at a family brunch during the weekend, juice has been a part of my day to day life. This past week, as I opened up a Welch’s Fruit Snack pack while sitting in front of my desk and going from one Zoom meeting to the next, I began to wonder about this company. As some of you may not know yet, Welch’s is not only filling store racks with multiple juice flavors of Grape, Cranberry, Raspberry Cranberry, and Pomegranate Cranberry, but also filling the frozen aisle and snack aisle of grocery stores with a multitude of other products. In fact, Welch’s logo is everywhere! So I asked myself, “How did Welch’s get to where it is today and what has been its journey?” What I found out not only surprised me, but also reminded me of a vital lesson every great business leader must learn to survive and thrive: Adapt or Die. After doing some research, I discovered Welch’s was a family company that started in 1849. A man named Ephraim Bull began to grow the first Concord grapes on a farm in Massachusetts.
A few years later the farm was passed down to Thomas Welch, a minister who avidly opposed the use of alcohol in churches for communion. His idea was to use the grapes as unfermented juice for communion instead of alcohol. Thus, the juice company was created under the name, “Dr. Welch’s Unfermented Wine.” However, the business didn’t take off with the widespread fame Thomas wanted. Years later, Thomas’s son took over the company in 1890 during the Great Depression. What Thomas’ son saw was that industrial jobs lack manpower, and people are unable to spend money on fine items like wines. He also saw the continuous development of Concord grapes being harvested on a multitude of farms. Because of this, he positioned his business into a major juice company. The brand’s proposition? A delicious juice that could be used as an alternative to wine! Thomas’ son successfully brought the flavorful juice into market by debuting it at one of the largest economic gatherings in the US: the Chicago World's Fair. It was during this time that the juice took major steam and became a household name. The novelty of the juice continued as Welch’s developed over time. The company began processing new items that met what the current society needed, such as the famous jars of Grape Jelly (1923) and the Frozen Grape Juice Concentrate (1949). The love of Welch’s in America became so affluent that by 1987, the company was processing over 300 tons of grapes! Even when Welch’s was sold to the National Grape Cooperative Association, Inc., the juice company continued the idea of adapting to change by creating new flavors and products that a lot of people keep in their cupboards and refrigerators. Now, Welch’s processes over 414,000 tons of its products each year. — Like I said in the beginning of this article, history can teach us many fruitful lessons. Welch’s history is just one of those. In stories like this, we can see that a business can achieve success if it chooses to adapt to society’s current needs and wants. Even in uncertain and trying times, we can continue to grow a successful business as long as we adapt to the environment around us. Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful. Follow us on LinkedIn. Stay tuned for next Friday’s article! Learn more about the top 5 trends in the future of work next week! |
