Ketchum Inc. - Sotto Terra Dinner

Sotto Terra Dinner

From August 23 to 27 2011, Ketchum organized dinners for ConAgra at a fictitious West Village restaurant called Sotto Terra, in order to promote some of their client's processed food products. The event was hosted by chef George Duran and food industry analyst Phil Lempert; New York city area food bloggers were invited and told food being served was prepared by chef Duran but were served ConAgra frozen foods instead. Ketchum filmed each dinner and hoped to use video footage for promotional purposes.

Guests were only informed of the true nature of the food being served at the end of the meal, their response being mainly negative (either due to perceived duplicity or being presented processed foods while expecting higher quality ingredients) and expressed these on their blogs; many of the guest refused to sign a release allowing the use of footage from the event.

Faced with the reaction, director of corporate communications Jackie Burton issued an apology, saying “But we also understand that there were people who were disappointed and we’re sorry — we apologize that they felt that way.” ConAgra's senior director of public relations and social media Stephanie Moritz later said “It was never our intention to put any bloggers or their guests in an uncomfortable position and for that we are sorry,” also offering reimbursement for any incurred expense to the attendees.