Kroger apologizes after using images from Nashville's Peach Truck: 'We were embarrassed'
There's a social media war brewing between Kroger and a small Nashville-based business, and it's over... peaches.
The Cincinnati-based grocery chain announced in May that it would begin selling crates of Georgia peaches at special events at various Kroger stores throughout the summer. However, it appears that the images used in the marketing of its new peach initiative might've been doctored images taken from Nashville's The Peach Truck.
Stephen Rose, the co-founder of The Peach Truck, posted a video on social media over the weekend with the caption, "Hey @krogerco, what's up with this?!" discussing the eerie similarities between the two brands' marketing materials. Rose states that he received a Google alert for The Peach Truck Friday morning but soon realized that the familiar images seen in the alert were not for his 12-year-old business but for Kroger.
"Yes, that Kroger is launching a truck where they sell peaches in front of the stores," Rose said in the video. "Well, that's nothing that we can protect; there's nothing we can do about that. However, I was shocked at the image they used."
The image he refers to shows a man in a blue polo and hat holding a box of Kroger-branded Sweet Georgia Peaches in front of a Kroger semitruck. He then explains that the man in the photo is actually a former employee of the Nashville business and shares another image of the person in front of The Peach Truck wearing a grey polo and a green hat.
"That is the same image; they just edited the photo to change the branding," Rose claims. "Kroger, you are a multi-billion – yes, billion with a 'b' – dollar corporation. Do you really need to take our marketing and re-edit it on top of taking our business model?"
In the video, Rose shares another image of a truck selling peaches outside of a Kroger event that he claims looks very similar to a photo of The Peach Truck from one of the businesses' 2020 stops.
Kroger admitted to using the images in error.
"We were embarrassed to learn about this," a Kroger spokesperson said in an email to The Enquirer. "You could say we have peach on our face! While these images were not approved to be shared as part of our marketing campaign, they should never have been created in the first place. We have removed the images from our system. We apologize to The Peach Truck and wish them nothing but success."
On Monday, Rose posted another video responding to Kroger's statement, stating, "How do you learn about something you did? I think the hard thing about this is it's an intentional copy of our brand, our model, the way we do things, and they took it so far as using an image of a person who used to work for us in their marketing."
Rose adds that while he's disappointed in Kroger's misuse of their images, this issue is not unlike other incidents happening between corporations and small businesses all over the country.
"It's just so unacceptable. You have so many resources. Please find the creativity inside of your own organization and don't take the hard work of small businesses like ourselves," Rose said.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kroger 'embarassed' after using doctored images from The Peach Truck
