Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, National Beverage
Search every verified Nick Caporella interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Nick Caporella, chairman and CEO of National Beverage, was criticized by crisis management professional Dean Crutchfield for the company's delayed response to questions about ingredients in its LaCroix sparkling water. Crutchfield said the company had months to address the issue after news broke around October 1, 2018, but did not respond until January 2019 with what it described as an independent lab test. Crutchfield characterized the delay as "dragging their feet" and suggested the company may have hoped the controversy would be "swept under the carpet." In a statement attributed to Caporella, he wrote with exclamation points that "the personality of the word LaCroix coupled with the awesome experience of its essence and taste is unique" and asked, "would you trade away that LaLa feeling? No way, they shout we just love our LaCroix." Caporella, a 1979 Horatio Alger Award recipient, has described his upbringing in a Pennsylvania agricultural and mining area during the Depression. He said that at age 11 he collected scrap metal and coal, and later started a site preparation business before becoming president and CEO of Burnup and Sims. In his award acceptance speech, Caporella credited a philosophy lesson from his father about carrying blocks in both arms as enabling him to "achieve far beyond my wildest dreams." He accepted the award on behalf of his parents, his wife Thomasina, and his family.
“Well it's a commodity market so to stand out you need a good brand to do that, that needs a reputation and it suddenly there are questions about what's in your product and there were stories that had been circulating that there were chemicals in the product.”
“It's an ingredient that goes into cockroach insecticide; yeah you don't want to be consuming exactly that. The very idea sends shivers down anyone's spine.”
“If the company didn't address those issues as effectively as it should have, and if they had, they wouldn't be looking at the kind of earnings reports they got.”
“This news broke on was it October 1st or something like that when they were first accused of this; they then responded in January with what they said was an independent lab test.”
“They could have done more; I guess that took a long time to respond exactly, and also in the CEO statement he hit towards the end starts choc I mean there's exclamation points in the statement that tells you all you need to know.”
“The personality of the word LaCroix coupled with the awesome experience of its essence and taste is unique; would you trade away that LaLa feeling? No way, they shout we just love our LaCroix.”
“They dragged their feet; they thought this was going to get swept under the carpet. It's not. One has to remember the power of word of mouth. This got out in October, people were already chattering about it.”
“This was a cool brand that was consumed by people who thought they knew what they were doing and now suddenly do more harm.”
“The issue about October and what was in the drinks: do you do more harm than good by responding in this way months after? The fashion now has people saying what is really going on.”
“Typically what companies do is they deny it but then what they full-heartedly do is delay it and clearly the companies clearly delayed this by months.”
“Nick Caporella grew up in the agricultural and mining area of the state of Pennsylvania in a time of depression in that area. At age eleven, he collected scrap metal to sell to junk dealers and searched dumps and along railroad tracks for scrap pieces of coal.”
“In his early 20s, Nick Caporella purchased a used drag line and started his own site preparation business. His company grew and was later acquired by Burnup and Sims Incorporated, the nation's leading telecommunications and cable television service company, where he eventually became its president and chief executive o...”
“Nick Caporella came up the hard way but the exciting way by unremitting work and positive thinking to notable success and an honorable position in this life.”
“Somebody once said that it couldn't be done, and he with a chuckle replied maybe it couldn't but he wouldn't be one to say so until he tried. So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin on his face, if he worried he hid it and he started to sing as he tackled this thing that couldn't be done and he did it.”
“My father taught me a philosophy lesson that has enabled me to achieve far beyond my wildest dreams. It was about carrying blocks balanced in both arms to better carry the load, symbolizing tackling challenges that couldn't be done and doing them.”
National Beverage CEO blamed its earnings miss on "injustice." Dean Crutchfield of the crisis management firm Dean Crutchfield ...
1979 Horatio Alger Award Recipient Nick A Caporella, possessed of an irrepressible entrepreneurial spirit, has built a number of ...
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