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US-Appointed Egg Lobby Paid Food Blogs and Targeted Chef To Crush Vegan Startup
An anonymous reader writes: The American Egg Board targeted publications, popular food bloggers, and a celebrity chef as part of an effort to combat a perceived threat from Hampton Creek, an egg-replacement startup backed by some of Silicon Valley's biggest names, according to internal emails. The Gaurdian reports: A detailed review of emails, sent from inside the AEB and obtained by the Guardian, shows that the lobbyist's anti-Hampton Creek campaign sought to:
- Pay food bloggers as much as $2,500 a post to write online recipes and stories about the virtue of eggs that repeated the egg lobby group's "key messages."
- Confront Andrew Zimmern, who had featured Hampton Creek on his popular Travel Channel show Bizarre Foods and praised the company in a blog post characterized by top egg board executives as a "love letter."
- Target publications including Forbes and Buzzfeed that had written broadly positive articles about a Silicon Valley darling.
- Unsuccessfully tried to recruit both the animal rights and autism activist Temple Grandin and the bestselling author and blogger Ree Drummond to publicly support the egg industry.
- Buy Google advertisements to show AEB-sponsored content when people searched for Hampton Creek or its founder Josh Tetrick.
This all sounds like what many companies would do when faced with an upstart competitor - basically what's known as "playing hardball".
If this Hampton Creek company is backed by some of the "biggest names" in Silicon Valley, isn't it well-positioned financially to respond? This doesn't exactly sound like David vs. Goliath.
As an aside - is there such a thing as "Big Egg"? We buy ours from a local farm.
#DeleteChrome
Those are all perfectly legitimate responses to attacks from food-fear mongers.
It's not just one startup--it's a multi-billion dollar industry built on FUD.
I read the TFA, I even went to the news article at the Guardian, and still I can't find any real link !
It is easy to say that so and so lobby paid thousands to blogs to publish this or that, but until we can read the articles in question ourselves, how are we to believe anything reported in the news article is true?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Did what? Public relations? Advertise?
The AEB is a taxpayer funded organization, so yes, running PR, misleading advertising campaigns, and undermining a private company, with my tax dollars is inappropriate.
The Egg Board is an advocate for the consumption of eggs. What's the problem?
This article seems more like a slashvertisement for Hampton Creek
The problem is a fraud on the public. Advocating a position that is based on who pays you, without regard to reason or truth or the benefit to mankind, without so much as a notice of your bias, causes massive amounts of harm to the public by sustaining inefficient practices.
It is perhaps the single most harmful activity to society a person can engage in--it wastes other people's lives. It perpetuates the spread of misinformation.
And it is fundamentally contrary to the ideals of Nerds, Geeks, and those who believe in the potential of science and information to help mankind get out of the mess we've made of our world and our societies.