On International Fruit Day, one of the world's largest fruit producers did something very cheeky. It published a letter to His Holiness seeking apple absolution.Employing 38,500 people across 30 countries, Dole plc is the world's leading fresh produce provider. Dole is one of the world's largest fruit producers. While you may only think of bananas when you hear the Dole brand name, Dole provides over 300 different products, including apples.
So on International Fruit Day, Dole did something very cheeky. It wrote an open letter to Pope Francis – asking the pontiff for his absolution for fruit after it was blamed for the Original Sin in the Bible. As the story goes, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. So Dole published the open letter to His Holiness in a leading Italian paper – La Repubblica – the only newspaper the Pope ever reads."With the greatest respect to your hallowed office, we think the time has finally come to address the over two-thousand-year-old elephant in the room.For too long, fruit has been vilified and demonized.
Dole's letter said that instead of being thought of as the Original Sin, could it not be thought of as the Original Snack? Fruit – and apples in particular – is healthy, unlike other sinful indulgences like doughnuts, nachos and curly fries. For these reasons and more, Dole humbly asked for the absolution that only the pontiff could offer.
That one letter, that ran in one newspaper, for just one day, resulted in 55 million media impressions, and 784 different news outlets did stories on the letter, earning the equivalent of $2.2 million in free media.Did the cheeky letter succeed in making fruit the centre of the conversation? Absolutely.