copyright & licensing

all content © VM (Vicky) Brasseur and licensed under CC BY-SA

Originally posted on 28 Apr 2024

1 minute read

This is a book about how companies in the food industry can be profitable while also doing the right thing for humanity and its environment, and it’s a good one. Ganzler goes into a lot of detail about how the Bon Appetit food service company succeeded, from supply chain to marketing to crisis management.

It’s all useful information, but more importantly I feel it’s also broadly applicable. There’s nothing in any of this guidance that limits its application beyond food. The sustainability concepts here are nearly identical to those I present companies with respect to open source. In this way, my reading this book had Ganzler preaching to the choir.

While it’s certainly an informative, useful, and inspiring book (even to those of us already in the choir), there’s something that bugged me about it. Ganzler spends a lot of time talking about the work in “I did” terms. “I” designed the table tents. “I” rolled out the initiative. “I” got in front of the problem. I’ve no doubt that she played a role—perhaps even a large one—in all of the things that the company accomplished. But…it’s a billion-plus-dollar company. She didn’t do these things alone. The book would’ve been better had it talked more about the team rather than phrasing everything as though the author were the sole actor in this story.