Chapman’s ice cream boycott backfires, COVID-19 vaccine policy wins brand extra support

Authored by theglobeandmail.com and submitted by monikapearl

Chapman’s became the target of a slew of anti-vaccination groups late last week after it instituted a new workplace rule that rewarded vaccinated employees with a $1-an-hour pay raise.Handout

The owner of one of Canada’s largest ice cream producers says an online campaign to boycott his company for its workplace COVID-19 vaccination policy has backfired and has led to renewed interest and support for the brand.

Chapman’s, a Markdale, Ont.-based ice cream manufacturer, became the target of a slew of anti-vaccination groups late last week after it instituted a new workplace rule that rewarded vaccinated employees with a $1-an-hour pay raise. This information became public after a photo of the policy – which was posted on a wall at Chapman’s offices – began circulating in anti-vaccine groups on various social-media platforms such as Telegram.

External reaction to the policy was swift, with calls on a number of platforms to boycott the company, vice-president Ashley Chapman said.

“We got at least 1,000 negative e-mails and so many terrible, cruel comments on our Facebook group. One e-mail asked us why we are employing segregation tactics. The exact words were: ‘Kudos on implementing Nazi-ism into our modern day.’”

But almost immediately after news reports emerged about Chapman’s becoming a target of vaccine deniers, a flood of positive e-mails, phone calls and social-media posts poured in, complimenting the company on its vaccination stand, and urging other companies to adopt similar rules to incentivize vaccinations within their workplaces.

“Over all, the ratio of good comments to bad comments is now about 20 to 1,” Mr. Chapman said. He added that the attempted boycott did not affect the company’s sales. On the contrary, the ice-cream producer has gotten numerous inquiries from Americans asking where they could purchase Chapman’s ice cream.

“It’s certainly taken the edge of the nasty side of things,” he said.

One post in a Telegram group called Unvaxxed Canada accused the company of enforcing discriminatory practices and urged group members to contact the company to express their disapproval.

But Chapman’s Twitter and Facebook pages currently show hundreds of comments in support of the ice-cream brand, many using the hashtag #IStandWithChapmans.

The company had previously paid for rapid tests for employees who refused to be vaccinated, but soon decided that twice-weekly rapid tests (costing $40 each) for about 100 of its unvaccinated employees were costly and unfair to other employees, and thus removed the policy.

“We said, ‘You know what, this isn’t fair. We are giving money to the unvaccinated, and we are not giving anything to vaccinated employees.’ That’s why we decided on the $1 pay increase,” Mr. Chapman said.

He anticipates about 5 of his 850 employees will choose to remain unvaccinated and will have to go on unpaid leave.

Mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for workers has morphed into a controversial subject as major corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Canada’s five major banks and McDonald’s, among many others, have chosen to bar employees from working if they are not fully vaccinated. About 11,000 Boeing Co. employees, or 9 per cent of the U.S. work force, have recently asked to be exempted from the vaccine policy, just as the company is beginning renewed contract negotiations with its employees’ union.

In Ontario, despite outrage from doctors, Premier Doug Ford chose to not make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for health care workers because of the risk that tens of thousands of them would to leave their jobs.

Editor’s note: The number of unvaccinated employees going on unpaid leave has been corrected in the online version of this story.

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Kayge on November 28th, 2021 at 00:40 UTC »

For those not familiar with Chapman's let me get you up to speed quickly on the target they selected.

Chapman's is a sizable company in the world of Canadian ice cream. It generally comes in third behind Unilever and Nestle - two giant momoliths you tend to buy from because they're big, but not on purpose.

Chapman's have always made their ice cream in Markdale - a small town of 1,400 about 90 minutes outside Toronto. As you'd expect a lot of the town is employed by Chapman's, and they give back to the town, donating to hospitals soccer feilds and the like, but do so in a way that doesn't make it feel like they "own" the town.

In 2009, their factory burnt to the ground, which would have been a perfect time to move to a bigger faculty in a bigger town. Instead, they committed to staying in Markdale, and every one of their employees stayed employed and continued to get paid. Of course, that got national coverage endearing them to the better part of Canada.

Now, they've increased pay for people who were vaccinated.

The anti-vaxxers have never been the most strategic of thinkers but even for them, this was an incredibly bad move.

rebelhead on November 27th, 2021 at 21:51 UTC »

I'm Canadian. I guess I'm morally obliged to go buy and eat ice cream now. Tough, but I can do it.

toutetiteface on November 27th, 2021 at 18:55 UTC »

Vengeance is a dish best served cold. Ice cream cold.