It's not a secret anymore

When I was a buyer, one of the most valuable pieces of information, and one of the most fiercely guarded, was the identity of suppliers. The time and trouble to find and develop a supplier made it very important to avoid letting the information fall into the hands of your competitors.

Evidently this is no longer a concern, at least for some companies.

I found this box at my local nofrills® store. The nofrills® chain was started by Loblaws (Canada's largest food retailer) in 1978. Originally company owned, the stores are now franchises. However the stores rely on Loblaws product development and sourcing staff, and Loblaws huge buying power.

Among the frills that the stores eschew are plastic bags, unless you want to pay for them. You bag your own groceries and either bring your own bags, buy them from the cashier, or use the boxes that the groceries were shipped in.

This is great. The store does not need to deal with the cardboard as consumers take it home and recycle it themselves.

But these boxes often contain potentially confidential information.

When I went to the red-empress.com website I can see all of the products that the firm offers for sale and contact details for all of its offices. I don't know if the produce buyer at Loblaws intended that this information would become publicly available, but that is what has happened.

For many companies disclosing confidential supplier and/or customer information is a firing offence, and rightfully so. This sort of information is a valuable competitive advantage. To bad the advantage has evaporated.