One of the greatest missed branding opportunities ever

The other day I was reading the truly fascinating book "Brand Sense- Sensory secrets behind the stuff we buy" (the revised and updated version) written by the legendary branding guru Martin Lindstrom and I was amazed by  a fact Martin shared. I bet you didn´t know this: many centuries ago carrots came in every color but orange. What's that?! Carrots weren't orange?! That's right! They actually were red, black, green, white and even purple. Then, sometime in the sixteenth century, Dutch growers decided to be patriotic and give this root vegetable a dutch edge. Using a mutant seed from North Africa they started developing an orange variety in honour of William I "The Prince of Orange", the first King of the Netherlands, or by other words the guy who led them to independence against the Spaniards. So, after Netherlands gained independence, a country with an orange flag now had as well its very own orange carrot. This is probably one of history´s most incredible successful branding exercises, however one that mysteriously was never capitalized on by the dutch, as very few people are aware that orange carrots were in fact a dutch creation. This is one of the greatest missed branding opportunities of all time. Interesting isn't it?