A couple of weeks ago, I chastised the Talley group and particularly their local industries - Affco Imlay, Land Meats and Open Country Dairy - for lack of community consciousness.
I was, in turn, chastised for my views, making me wonder whether I was being unfair.
Perhaps it is not the role of businesses to have a moral compass, to feel any compulsion to put anything back into the community other than the wages they pay to local workers.
It can certainly be argued that they are economically more efficient if the bottom line is the only line on their horizon.
It was, I am sure, a complete coincidence that a week after that editorial hundreds of Kiwis stumped up the money to pay for a crowd-sourced advertisement in the Nelson Mail newspaper calling on Talleys to negotiate fairly with its employees. Talleys' treatment of workers has gained some notoriety.