I actually came here to say the same thing (only I was going to be much more verbose).
The fact of the matter is that people buy even sillier things for much more than $6. If you're happy with your $6 asparagus water, then I don't see what the problem is. In fact, the only time I would suggest that something bad is going on is, I think, when you try to convince me I'm the one in the wrong for not enjoying your weird and expensive food.
Their statement indicating it was a mistake is actually much worse:
"It was made incorrectly and has since been removed."
So, you sold people a product that was made incorrectly. So incorrectly that you have permanently discontinued the product. Selling something stupid that doesn't take off isn't a crime, but selling something that was made "incorrectly" to such an extent that it has to be banished forever actually does sound like it should be a crime. Like, if I sold uranium water and realized it was actually horrible and not as I previously thought good so I removed it forever, then there should probably be some sort of a fine involved at the very least.
Culturally this whole thing stinks. People enjoy silly things that cost too much money. Ideally, this wouldn't happen, but technically I don't see the harm. We all have to do something and if your something seems silly and expensive to me that shouldn't be a reason for me to try to stop you from having your fun.
But when people try to join in and start a new silly and expensive trend, the cost of failure shouldn't be absolute ostracization. We need people to try new things or else no progress is made. If we're going to accept some silly things, then we should accept people trying to start any silly thing. And at any rate, asparagus water isn't where I would draw the line. Is expensive water really where we want our moral outrage to be focused on?
And the worst of it is that the excuse they have is horrifying. If they just said, "sorry we messed up," then we could all move on with our lives. But instead they said that they, a high end food distribution service, provided their high end customers with a defective product. So defective in fact that they had to treat it like radioactive waste and banish it to Yucca mountain until the end of time. And it worked.
Try something stupid that's basically the same as all the other stupid things that have already been normalized. Your company deserves to be destroyed. Excuse yourself by saying you were only trying to commit war crimes. Oh never mind, that's fine then.
I assume it's to reduce the cognitive dissonance - you can't say "I tried to sell a stupid product" if you have a belief in your rightness. The product was RIGHT, but the implementation was bad is a lot easier to deal with if you're trying to justifying selling 2.2 oz of beef jerky for $8.00.
