The sale of the Hamburg spice manufacturer Ankerkraut to the food giant Nestlé has caused an uproar in the scene. After the deal was announced in April, criticism hailed on social media from disappointed customers who couldn’t identify with Nestlé. And numerous influencers, who had made a significant contribution to the enormous success of the spice brand in recent years, also terminated the cooperation.
Some prominent ex-Ankerkraut influencers are now defecting to the competition: The influencer trio DoktorFroid around the YouTube star LeFloid, as well as the food influencer Sturmwaffel, are new brand ambassadors for the spice manufacturer Ostmann. The company said so, according to a report by Lebensmittelzeitung. A long-term partnership has been concluded with all of them.
In the future, the YouTubers will advertise Ostmann, which belongs to the Fuchs Group, on their channels, and the development of joint spice creations is also planned. “Ostmann is the ideal spice partner for DoktorFroid and Sturmwaffel because we have the knowledge and experience to develop innovative spice mixtures for creative recipe ideas,” says Thomas Neumann, Managing Director Business Unit Retail at the Fuchs Group, according to Lebensmittelzeitung. A query from stern about the cooperation initially went unanswered.
The influencer move is not entirely without irony: after all, the central criticism of the alienated Ankerkraut fans was that the former start-up (which now has a turnover of over 40 million euros itself) sold to a global food company like Nestlé. However, the new partner of LeFloid and Co is itself a heavyweight in the industry: The Fuchs Group is an international spice manufacturer that has dominated the German and European spice market for years with its Ostmann and Fuchs brands. The family business makes more than 500 million euros in sales a year.
Source: Food Newspaper
