Barilla Pasta: Momma (and Momma) Mia!

In 2013 Guido Barilla, immediate member of the Barilla family and part owner of the world’s largest pasta company, casually mentioned on a radio interview that his company would never cater to gay families.  He graciously offered that there was lots of pasta in the world (and there is!) and if gay people and their families did not like his words they could just eat some of the other pasta.  There was a lot of blowback (sorry) and Mr. Barilla said wait wait wait, I was promoting women and how important they are to the family.  He had apparently never heard of lesbian moms and sort of thought that now, at last, everyone understood the true meaning of his words from his interview.  He’s not anti-gay, he is pro-women cooking pasta!  Some more anger followed.  The next day he issued a real apology, on video, and then sat back and let his CEO fix the situation he had cooked up (ha!).

That was in 2013.  Barilla has made millions of dollars of donations to anti-bullying causes, worked with the alphabet mafia (LGBTQIA+) over the last 8 years, but some people still cannot bring themselves to buy Barilla pasta.  Some gay people with podcasts drive to other grocery stores to buy anything other than Barilla pasta.

When is an apology enough?  If an apology is sincere, do you have to accept it?  Can you split situations down the middle and allow that while one person has more work to do, another person has carried the entire company through a PR disaster and allow some sort of forgiveness?