Brand Name SAME WORD, NEW OPPORTUNITY

It’s easy to fear changes to your brand. It’s harder (but more fulfilling!) to embrace them. That’s why Edible Arrangements finally embraced a new definition of edibles.

- JASON FEIFER

Then, in 2016, California passed Proposition 64, which legalized recreational marijuana. Farid read the text of the bill and was horrified: The word edibles was in there— familiar to any pot lover, and now enshrined into law to mean weed-laced food. We can’t let it happen, he recalls thinking. He tried to fight it— and as he did, he learned an important lesson: Sometimes the greatest threats are opportunities in disguise.

This is an issue many industries grapple with, as consumer tastes and culture change. The beef industry, for example, has lobbied for laws to protect the word burger from plant-based companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Meanwhile, the dairy industry has tried to protect the word milk from oat, soy, and other plant-based competitors.