<story><title>Hampton Creek Ran Undercover Project to Buy Up Its Own Vegan Mayo</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/food-startup-ran-undercover-project-to-buy-up-its-own-products</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>homegarlic</author><text>Almost anyone in a highly competitive market doesn&amp;#x27;t play by the rules.&lt;p&gt;Isn&amp;#x27;t it sketchy when egg-carton has a chicken freely roaming the grass on it?&lt;p&gt;Isn&amp;#x27;t it sketchy to write cage-free when the chicken is in a dark large container clumped together with hundreds of other chickens?&lt;p&gt;They are selling a product that has to compete with billion-dollar businesses that already have plenty of sketchy and untruthful marketing.&lt;p&gt;They spent a meager 77k on this and somehow that is unacceptable.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s just the same if not less worse than what their competition does.</text></item><item><author>themgt</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;In at least some cases, Hampton Creek lumped in expenses related to buying its own products with wages paid to contractors, according to five former workers. All five said money they were given to buy jars of Just Mayo were treated as taxable income, making them liable for a higher tax bill than their actual earnings would require. One former contractor provided H&amp;amp;R Block tax records showing this to be the case. Another Creeker asked the company in an e-mail to separate the expenses from taxable income. But the request was ignored, the contractor said. Hampton creek declined to comment about the alleged practice.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sketchy and unacceptable</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jnbiche</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s sketchy because the alleged actions are basically tax fraud.  It&amp;#x27;s also unethical because Hampton Creek were taking money from the pocket of the contractors because they were making them pay income taxes on money they didn&amp;#x27;t actually earn.&lt;p&gt;Did you actually read the parent comment? This goes way beyond any deceptive marketing practices.&lt;p&gt;For the record, I&amp;#x27;m one of HN&amp;#x27;s many (oft mocked) libertarians, but even as a hands-off kinda guy, this is a step too far.  They &amp;quot;laundered&amp;quot; the money through their contractor&amp;#x27;s pay, because they didn&amp;#x27;t want it to show up on their financial statements.&lt;p&gt;So it&amp;#x27;s not the deceptive marketing (you&amp;#x27;re right that this is more or less par for the course), it&amp;#x27;s the lies and fraud they allegedly committed to hide the deceptive marketing.</text></comment>
<story><title>Hampton Creek Ran Undercover Project to Buy Up Its Own Vegan Mayo</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/food-startup-ran-undercover-project-to-buy-up-its-own-products</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>homegarlic</author><text>Almost anyone in a highly competitive market doesn&amp;#x27;t play by the rules.&lt;p&gt;Isn&amp;#x27;t it sketchy when egg-carton has a chicken freely roaming the grass on it?&lt;p&gt;Isn&amp;#x27;t it sketchy to write cage-free when the chicken is in a dark large container clumped together with hundreds of other chickens?&lt;p&gt;They are selling a product that has to compete with billion-dollar businesses that already have plenty of sketchy and untruthful marketing.&lt;p&gt;They spent a meager 77k on this and somehow that is unacceptable.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s just the same if not less worse than what their competition does.</text></item><item><author>themgt</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;In at least some cases, Hampton Creek lumped in expenses related to buying its own products with wages paid to contractors, according to five former workers. All five said money they were given to buy jars of Just Mayo were treated as taxable income, making them liable for a higher tax bill than their actual earnings would require. One former contractor provided H&amp;amp;R Block tax records showing this to be the case. Another Creeker asked the company in an e-mail to separate the expenses from taxable income. But the request was ignored, the contractor said. Hampton creek declined to comment about the alleged practice.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sketchy and unacceptable</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thieving_magpie</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s sketchy to call egg-free-white-flavored-oil-mix Mayo. It&amp;#x27;s sketchy to put a giant egg on your egg-free mayo.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;While Just Mayo is egg-free, Hampton Creek Chief Executive Josh Tetrick also emphasized that it doesn’t use the term “mayonnaise,” only “mayo.”&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s mayo, not mayonnaise you silly consumers.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;just-mayo-reaches-agreement-with-fda-to-keep-name-change-label-1450394163&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;just-mayo-reaches-agreement-with...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;edit: You know, of all the things I could comment I talk about eggless f&amp;#x27;ng mayo. I wish I could delete this :)</text></comment>