Internal emails reveal coordinated attack by American Egg Board to quash the rise of Hampton Creek?s egg alternative in possible breach of federal regulations
A government-controlled industry group targeted popular food bloggers, major publications and a celebrity chef as part of its sweeping effort to combat a perceived threat from an egg-replacement startup backed by some of Silicon Valley?s biggest names, the Guardian can reveal.
The lobbyists? media counterattack, in possible violation of US department of agriculture rules, was coordinated by a marketing arm of the egg industry called the American Egg Board (AEB). It arose after AEB chief executive Joanne Ivy identified the fledgling technology startup Hampton Creek as a ?crisis and major threat to the future? of the $5.5bn-a-year egg market.
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
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How the Egg Lobby Paid Food Blogs and Targeted Chef to Crush a Vegan Startup | Alternet