USDA orders AEB staff to undergo etiquette and ethics training over threats against Hampton Creeks CEO and plans to disrupt the brands distribution
The American Egg Board, the US Department of Agricultures egg-marketing arm, acted wrongly in its attempt to crush a plant-based mayonnaise startup, the USDAsaid in a report.
The Guardian revealed last year that the American Egg Board (AEB) lobbied for a concerted attack on Hampton Creek, a food company that has created a low-cost plant-based egg replacement and the maker of Just Mayo, a mayonnaise alternative.
According to documents acquired by Freedom of Information Act experts Jeffrey Light and Ryan Shapiro and passed to the Guardian, the AEB advised agriculture giant Unilever how best to pursue action against Hampton Creek, joked about having Hampton Creek founder Josh Tetrick killed, and paid PR firm Edelman to buy coverage praising industrial farming on food blogs in response. The board also discussed ways to have Hampton Creeks products pulled from the Whole Foods supermarket chain.
While the AEB is overseen by the USDA and funded by a federal levy on eggs, it is composed of current and former egg-industry executives.
At the recommendation of the USDA, AEB members will be required to complete additional training regarding proper email etiquette and ethics related to the joking threats, will have to complete yet more ethics training related to the plan to end Just Mayos distribution at Whole Foods, and will have to be trained further still regarding the pop-up ads it had bought against Tetricks name to advertise egg product. The AEB will no longer work with Edelman.
The USDA found the AEB acted correctly when it advised Unilever on the most efficient way to carry out action against Hampton Creek.
Additionally, the inquiry discovered that Joanne Ivy had ordered staff to purge emails that referred to Hampton Creek or its old brand name, Beyond Eggs. Staff did not obey the instructions, and the emails were retrieved, though Ivy herself deleted the Beyond Eggs emails. More training will be required to ensure staff carry out record retention policies.
Ivy, honored as 2015s Egg Person of the Year at the Urner Barry marketing conference, resigned a year ago this month.
Hampton Creek, based in San Francisco, gained media attention because of its feel-good message of wanting to improve the food system with healthier, more environmentally friendly products. But more recently, Bloomberg reported that the startup used contractors to buy its products from supermarket shelves, thus inflating the sales figures given to investors. Hampton Creek did not immediately respond when asked by the Associated Press about the Bloomberg stories.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/07/american-egg-board-usda-hampton-creek
