Bloggers Decry ConAgra's Bait-And-Switch At Underground Dinner

About a month ago, HuffPost Food, along with many food bloggers, received an email from the PR agency Ketchum. Our invitation read:

We would like to invite you to an exclusive underground restaurant, Sotto Terra, with George Duran and Phil Lempert in New York City – only open from August 23-27, 2011. Please see the attached invitation for details – we hope you join us!

We did not attend, but several New York-based food bloggers did, and some offered giveaways on their blogs for readers to attend as well. Though some knew there would be a catch -- there's no such thing as a free meal, after all -- diners remained optimistic about the meal.

None of them were expecting a four-course meal of frozen box meals from ConAgra-owned brand Marie Callender's, with cameras filming diners' reactions. What seems like a ploy similar to Pizza Hut's hidden camera pasta commercials may have backfired though. Many of the attendees have written blog posts summarizing the event, saying they felt irked and hoodwinked. Several have pointed out the irony that conversations before the meal with George Duran and Phil Lempert discussed eating better and healthier...but then what they ate was the opposite.

Stephanie Moritz, senior director of public relations and social media at ConAgra told the New York Times that ConAgra hoped to use the footage for videos on YouTube on on its website, and for bloggers to generate buzz about being "pleasantly surprised" about what they ate.

Instead, they were greeted with the following blogger reactions:

Chubby Chinese Girl: "They were too confident about their products or just didn't believe in our palates and tastebuds. To make it even worse, a "giveway" that sounded like lavish dinner for my readers wasn't a classy move either. If I accept an invite and it turns out bad, that's fine, it was mine time, I can live with that. But having me promote it and then give my readers/winners frozen food isn't called for."

Mom Confessionals: "Our entire meal was a SHAM! We were unwilling participants in a bait-and-switch for Marie Callender’s new frozen three cheese lasagna and there were cameras watching our reactions. I’ve got a sense of humor so I was okay with it and I had been enjoying myself up until that point, but I could tell that the rest of the participants were not. Everyone feigned weak shock and faked approval of the frozen meal. My guests were eager to leave all of a sudden and refused to sign the release."

Food Mayhem: "I told you first hand of our focus on wholesome food, particularly with our baby in tow. We both said to you, with 20+ witnesses and apparently hidden cameras, how much we despise over-processed foods and artificial ingredients. We discussed with the group the sad state of chemical-filled foods and discussed various chains. And yet, you still fed me the exact thing I said I did not want to eat."

The blog Brand Noise wrote that the event "broke every basic social media and research rule."

Moritz told the Times, “It was never our intention to put any bloggers or their guests in an uncomfortable position and for that we are sorry.” ConAgra has offered to reimburse attendees for expenses such as cab fare and babysitting.

Comments

[kareemachan]

12:10 PM on 09/09/2011

Hey, this IS ConAgra we're talking about here. Did anybody really think they'd do something classy and healthy?

[samvance]

11:59 PM on 09/07/2011

Everyone has missed the real story here.... What was their reaction to the food BEFORE being told it was frozen?? These are all comments from their blogs, not from the event itself. My guess is that they were pleased with the food or at least not disgusted with it. All the reporting on this is incredibly misleading as it leads people to assume that they A. hated the food and B. expressed this outrage at the event.

[rokzane]

01:11 AM on 09/08/2011

Did you not read carefully enough? Most of them left the entrees and desserts UNFINISHED. Would they do that with food they were enjoying? That about says it all. I myself would still finish a dish I thought was mediocre at best just to avoid being rude, and even if I didn’t have the opportunity during the meal to complain about it, I wouldn’t go back, and I would complain to everyone I knew that the food was not that great. Not complaining during the meal is not a sign of acceptance, just politeness. One blogger noted that after trying the entree she was having serious doubts about Duran’s ability as a chef.

[samvance]

07:46 AM on 09/08/2011

Rokzane:

The trick is that they made these comments long after the even when their perceptions were clouded by their resentment for this type of food processing. For proper sensory analysis, they would have needed to fill out some sort of score sheet or comment card immediately after eating the food and definitely before the reveal.

[Kristin LesneyRuiz]

10:03 PM on 09/07/2011

Lesson learned. DOH!

[SteveSinCal]

05:03 PM on 09/07/2011

They were shocked to discover they were served frozen preservatives and chemicals under the guise of eating better.

Lesson learned. From now on when people talk about eating better, we need to ask, "better than what?"

[edwoodjr]

04:47 PM on 09/07/2011

You get what you pay for.

[rokzane]

04:22 PM on 09/07/2011

I can’t believe some of the comments I’m seeing about this unethical PR stunt. People are not reading the posting from the outraged bloggers that attended this event. The other 38+% that were thoroughly displeased said that they knew something was off with the entree and dessert. The lasagna was mostly described as salty, mushy, and with “weird, almost too uniform meat pieces to be homemade.” The dessert was deemed too sweet and the crumb topping had an odd texture. Most of these bloggers didn’t even finish their entrees and picked at the dessert. Like most civilized, polite, educated people, they didn’t immediately bash the food, but they found it odd that they didn’t have any real chance to talk about it at the table. Seems Lembert swiftly kept the conversation moving away from talk about the food being served. They were not expecting a high profile chef to serve them frozen food! They were there to eat Duran’s food, not be duped into believing otherwise by ConAgra’s PR firm. In my younger years I ate a fair amount of frozen food cause I just didn’t know any better as a young twenty-something going through college. I can always tell the difference between frozen, prepared food and fresh, homemade food...simply because I’ve eaten a lot of both. Lesson learned for ConAgra! If you want approval for the processed, frozen nonsense you call food, don’t invite a bunch of foodie bloggers to taste it!

[winebuyer]

04:03 PM on 09/07/2011

I love it, modern-day ' journalists', er, bloggers, calling something a sham. Go figure

[Shichman]

04:16 PM on 09/07/2011

a sham is a sham, regardless of who notices or complains about it.

[kareemachan]

12:11 PM on 09/09/2011

ConAgra just called. They're sending you a frozen lasagna and a bright shiny nickel.

[b1rd67]

03:44 PM on 09/07/2011

There's a reason the name of the company starts with CON

[somnus00]

08:19 PM on 09/07/2011

I feel the same way about CON-gress.

[KMBerger]

03:18 PM on 09/07/2011

ConAgra is a CON! Boycott their processed foods.

[CKA2010]

06:52 PM on 09/07/2011

Really? Because of this? I have far more important things to worry about than this.

[kareemachan]

12:12 PM on 09/09/2011

No, because of their unethical practices and pushing genetically-modified food. I would educate myself on things like this, as you may have to worry about it in the future.

[Pat Padrnos]

03:12 PM on 09/07/2011

What I find strange about this is that people would go somewhere just for a free meal. They had to know there was a catch. What is that corny old phrase, "There is no such thing as a free lunch" - or something like that.
My husband worked for ConAgra at one time - it was a company that ConAgra bought. It did not take him long to realize he could not stay there.

[GoneLongGone]

04:06 PM on 09/07/2011

"What I find strange about this is that people would go somewhere just for a free meal. "

You find it strange that FOOD bloggers would get invited to try out FOOD by a company or restaurant?

I find that strange.

[LuvsCheerios]

04:17 PM on 09/07/2011

Sometimes the obvious is well, no so obvious to some....
My thoughts exactly

[Pat Padrnos]

04:48 PM on 09/07/2011

Sorry. I should have read it more carefully.

[rokzane]

04:26 PM on 09/07/2011

Many of them were under the impression that this was an event to promote a new restaurant by Duran and Lembert or to promote his cookbook (in the hopes that they would in turn blog about the event to drive sales of his book)--not ConAgra frozen foods!

[Sumocat]

02:15 PM on 09/07/2011

This trick worked for Pizza Hut because they invited regular folks, not people who pay attention to food for a living. Plus, Pizza Hut puts all their hot dishes through an real oven to cook. They aren't nuked nor designed to sit in a freezer for months on end. It was pure stupidity by ConAgra's PR to think they could pull this off.

[Stayalert]

02:01 PM on 09/07/2011

AMY's and a few other ethical organic healthy food companies are going to get my business from now on. I knew Marie's was full of fat content, but hadn't realized(done my homework) that
Con Agra was parent corp to Marie Calendar products. ug

[janereally]

03:05 PM on 09/07/2011

ConAgra has their talons in everything - be on the alert! I boycott corporate food everywhere possible... avoid e coli and lots of other problems.

Amy's is great, had a cheese enchilada for lunch - yum.

[olitenup]

01:21 PM on 09/07/2011

This is a classic example of how arrogant Mad. Ave is these days. They simply follow the lack of ethics established by their greedy big corporate clients. The truth has no place in business anymore, which is ironic considering how so many big corporations back the fundamentalist social agenda.

[EatMeSF]

01:20 PM on 09/07/2011

Your big clue was the invite was from Ketchum... Even little old me would have ripped it up and tossed it out. Daaaaaaaaaa

[El Chingaso]

01:01 PM on 09/07/2011

More shenanigans from ConAgra. Processed foods are not good for anyone, even in small doses. Good to see...the event backfired.

[LuvsCheerios]

04:18 PM on 09/07/2011

And not a good bang for your buck either.