They claim that they were sabotaged because of a rejected offer to take over the company.
Snoop Dogg and Master P claim that the US discounter Walmart deliberately withheld the products from their “Snoop Cereal” range from customers. In a lawsuit filed on February 6th against Walmart and the food manufacturer Post Consumer Brands, the rappers’ lawyers allege that the supermarket chain did not put their branded cereal in the sales area, but instead hid it in the storage rooms so that it could not be shopped. But why?
Sabotage after offer rejection
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the company Broadus Foods, which Dogg and Master P founded together specifically for their 2022 food line. The publicly available lawsuit now states that after a deal with Post Consumer Brands, the food manufacturer “ensured that ‘Snoop Cereal’ was unavailable to consumers.” By doing so they would have violated the contract.
Accordingly, this happened after the musicians refused to sell their company to the manufacturer. Nevertheless, they entered into a small-scale partnership in which they wanted to keep “Snoop Cereal” as one of their own brands and only have it distributed alongside the other products at retailers such as Walmart.
Ben Crump, an attorney for Snoop Dogg and Master P, said in a press conference that Post Consumer Brands, however, “only wanted to give the appearance that they would abide by the terms of the partnership.”
Out of stock?
The cereal was introduced to Walmart stores in July 2023, but in the lawsuit the rappers claim that customers complained a few months later that they couldn’t find the cereal on shelves. These sold well at first, but after a while they were incorrectly marked as “out of stock” in the system.
“Upon further investigation by store employees, it was discovered that each of these stores had several boxes of ‘Snoop Cereal’ in stock. These were apparently coded so “that they could not be placed on store shelves,” according to the claim. The muesli lay untouched in the storage rooms for months.
“Significant investments made in the company”
A representative from the food manufacturer told TMZ that they were “thrilled to work with Broadus Foods” and had “made significant investments in the company.” Post Consumer Brands was “disappointed” when “consumer demand did not meet expectations.”
“There are many factors that affect sales of a product, including consumer demand, seasonality and price, to name a few,” Walmart said on the subject. However, they did not want to provide any further details about the lawsuit at the moment.