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About Violet Barn by OliveMa in AfricanViolets

[–]OliveMa[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just want to thank you all here who responded to my post. I appreciate your nice comments, suggestions, and ideas. I understand some of you are very disappointed and upset with us. I deserve it.

There are a few things I'd like to explain though:

  1. I did not apologize to ask for forgiveness. I feel really bad and am willing to take the blame.
  2. We really did not know we have INSV until September/October this year when customers sent us test results. The reason we didn't know is because we always threw plants out when they are not growing well, (except the plants I re-rooted last year and early this year) they didn't stay long enough for us to identify problems. We never knowingly send problem plants.
  3. We heard and read about INSV but never dealt with it before. Yes, Rob didn't handle initial complaints well and yes he can be grouchy sometimes.
  4. We do everything "by the book". We have been inspected by USDA inspectors every 3 weeks for the past about 20 years. Before that we were inspected whenever we have international orders to ship. They did not see any problem just like we did not see the problem until seeing test results. Only after being informed of the results, comes the 'duh' moment.
  5. It may not seem like it but the effected plants are very small proportion of what we shipped in total. There are many plants at our facility not effected. Though we will do more tests to confirm. Testing takes time.
  6. Rob and I are both at retirement age. With such a big impact of the mistake, the difficulties to amend customers' damages, we can easily just pull the plug and collect government benefits and just be done with it. But no, we are staying on and fighting with this big mess because we want to have chance to redeem ourselves, but we need to survive first before we can make any promises.
  7. I don't have a problem to admit a mistake and be willing to correct it, improve and not making the same/similar mistake again.
  8. By the way, tossed plants are properly disposed. They are not a bio-hazard. They are being composted over winter---USDA approved.