COMPANY CAUGHT BUYING UP ITS OWN PRODUCT

The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating Hampton Creek, the potentially $1 billion company that was caught buying large quantities of its own vegan mayonnaise. This would have made it look like the mayonnaise was more popular than it was, in turn making the company look more valuable than it really was. Hampton Creek was founded in 2011 as a food tech startup that used new plant-based proteins to reformulate everyday foods like mayonnaise and cookie dough. It quickly became one of the buzziest food startups and drew the attention of flashy investors like Bill Gates and Jerry Yang of Yahoo. The vegan-mayo buyback scheme reportedly began in 2014. The startup hired contractors to buy its own product in mass quantities from Walmart, Safeway, Kroger and other grocers. Staff on the Hampton Creek team reportedly even called stores pretending to be customers asking about the product. The vegan food startup makes the plant-based packaged food products Just Mayo, Just Cookie Dough and Just Cookies.
* And now they’re facing the Just-ice System.
* Whoa, whoa, whoa – hold on. You’re telling me people didn’t just naturally go wild for plant-based protein reformulated vegan mayonnaise?
* I mean, it sounds so tasty – like eating petroleum jelly.
* I like the part of this story where we learn Bill Gates can be fleeced. Kind of makes up for all the aggravation we had to endure with Windows Vista.
* Wow, the Securities and Exchange Commission finally springs into action and it’s about this?
* Meanwhile, those big Wall Street firms were selling fraudulently-rated securities and then betting against them, and they go scot-free.
* Oh, sometimes they had to pay a big fine, but if nobody goes to jail, a big fine is really just giving the government a cut of the loot.
* The difference here is – while the SEC members plan to get plush jobs back on Wall Street later – nobody is angling for a job selling vegan mayo.
* Sounds like the executives at Hampton Creek are now up the creek.