Now they were being asked not simply to promote Just Mayo but to start buying it as well-an initiative the company dubbed “Special Project” or “Buyouts”, they say. Some contractors were even told to call grocers to request Just Mayo and were provided scripts to follow that had them pretending to be parents organizing back-to-school events or caterers.
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Entrepreneur/founder Josh Tetrick, who remains CEO of the company, admitted the tactic but said it amounts to about $77,000, representing less than 0.12 percent of the company’s sales. Salad was on the menu, and because the groom is a fan of Caesar, in the days running up to the wedding my parents’ fridge was packed with bottles of Hampton Creek’s egg-free version of the classic dressing.
The buyback program was carried out about eight months before Hampton Creek got large venture capital funds such as Founders Fund to invest $90 million into the startup.
One former contractor provided receipts showing purchases of more than 140 jars of Just Mayo in a single day.
In addition to buying hundreds of jars of the mayo across the US, contractors at Hampton Creek were told to call store managers pretending they were customers asking about Just Mayo, Bloomberg reported.
A purported April 2014 email to contractors known as “Creekers” highlighted the fierce battle for shelf space in the condiments aisle of supermarkets.
“The most important next step with Safeway is huge sales out of the gate”, Love continued.
Just Mayo’s lack of eggs gave it market appeal to vegans and health-conscious consumers, but it had also sparked a war with Unilever, the multi-national behemoth that owns Hellmann’s mayonnaise. “I might go through the self-checkout lanes, or make several transactions going to different cashiers each time to avoid questions like, ‘Why are you buying so much mayo?!'” Love wrote. In 2014, Hampton Creek was embroiled in a battle with Unilever over the labelling of Just Mayo. “This is an undercover project”.
Tetrick told CNBC: “We did absolutely have people call saying they were stoked about the company and the product”. “We’ll continue doing it”. The program was allegedly an effort to make “Just Mayo” seem more popular than it really was as investors were unaware of the buybacks, according to a Bloomberg News investigative report. But former Hampton Creek contractors and two ex-senior staff members told Bloomberg the buyback assignments were separate from quality checks at stores.
“We spent more in snacks this year than the entirety of the program”, Tetrick said.
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The news medium reported Aug 4.it had uncovered payment receipts and talked to former employees and contractors who were told to go to Safeway and other early retailers of the product in 2014 and buy hundreds of jars and otherwise talk up the product while hiding the fact they were employed by Hampton Creek.
