Opinion
By Steve Nicklas, 12/10-24
Acting like a Thanksgiving turkey, a local Publix bakery refused to decorate a holiday cake containing political ingredients.
The Publix supermarket in Wildlight reportedly refused to put the letters “MAGA” on a cake for loyal customer Lisa Brown Bonfrancesco. Instead of writing the acronym for “Make America Great Again,” the bakery gave Bonfrancesco a container of icing to do it herself. And a $43 bill for a custom cake.
It’s as disheartening as perusing your grocery bill at Publix, an upscale chain with upscale prices – a distant cry from discount competitors like Aldi. In addition, Yulee is overwhelmingly conservative, like the rest of Nassau County. So play to your audience. In fact, Publix is one of Florida’s largest corporations, headquartered in the heartland of Lakeland. This is hardly a ultra-liberal hellhole. And incidents like this shouldn’t be happening – once again.
MAGA is the slogan for the America-first agenda of Donald Trump. And it’s confounding why bringing greatness to America is controversial. Especially when you consider the emphatic, landslide presidential election Trump just won.
Do we truly want to become a third-world nation? Where corruption is rampant, elections are rigged, and the media is a lapdog for the party in power. (Oh wait, this is what we have.)
However, Publix officials towed the corporate line and backed the Yulee store’s actions when contacted by Bonfrancesco’s friend, Suzie Burns. The store manager apparently has discretion over custom cakes under the esoteric guise of “treating all customers with dignity and respect.” In other words, store officials are defending their woke policies.
Burns was fed this feeble line of explanation by the corporate office: “At Publix, we care about our customers and work hard to create a pleasant shopping experience. While we are often asked to create specialty cakes with free-hand designs, the manager in charge, in each store, may decline requests including questionable images and/or verbiage.”
Publix does not want to go down the treacherous path of the Bud Light brand. Where the top-selling beer in the U.S. has been diminished to a punchline of condescending jokes. It has always been considered a people-pleasing outfit.
And Publix is a valuable corporate partner for communities throughout Florida, with more than 800 stores. The company employs 255,000 people in eight states who can invest in its private stock (which has appreciated substantially over the years).
This single incident is not an indictment of the Publix brand. But it is a criticism of short-sighted corporate policies, which should be addressed.
Distasteful actions like these are the icing on the proverbial cake for a company’s demise. Negative publicity can heat up once inside the oven of public opinion.
Steve Nicklas is the managing partner of Nicklas Wealth Management in Fernandina Beach. He is also an award-winning columnist. His columns regularly appear in weekly newspapers in Northeast Florida and in Southeast Georgia, and on his website at www.SteveNicklasMarketplace.com. He has published a book, “All About Money,” of his favorite columns from the past 20 years. The book is available on Amazon. He has also done financial reports for area radio stations and for National Public Radio in Jacksonville. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 904-753-0236.
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
