Is Kellogg Using Grant Achatz's Name Without Permission?

By Anthony Todd in Food on May 15, 2012 8:20PM

Today in odd news: Grant Achatz's business partner, Nick Kokonas, tweeted out this gem: "Would be nice of someone from Kelloggs to contact us about this bc that's not our food." Kokonas is referring to a recipe on Snackpicks.com entitled "Chef Grant Actatz's Sweet Potato Toppers." No, that's not a typo - that's how they spelled it.

Snackpicks.com is a website run by Kellogg, the maker of many fine snack products. Indeed, the recipe requires "Keebler Town House Toppers." Aside from the fact that it requires four cups of whipping cream, the recipe doesn't look too bad - but it doesn't look like something that Achatz would have come up with. Is there another famous chef who just happens to have a similar name? We doubt it, but the world is quite strange. There's a screenshot above, in case it disappears.

We asked Nick Kokonas about it. "To my knowledge, no we did not [give permission]. I found an article from 2006 that quotes Grant with that recipe. Neither of us remembers it but that's 6 years ago! Even if we agreed back then they can't use his endorsement now without permission." Turns out there's even another recipe using his name on the same site.

A request for a comment from Kellogg has so far gone unanswered - we'll update when we get something.

UPDATE (4:30 p.m.) - We heard back from Kellogg media relations. They "are looking into it right now" but don't have an official comment. They are trying to reach Chef Achatz to confirm all of the details.

UPDATE (3:45 p.m. Wednesday) - The official comment: "Kellogg and Chef Grant Achatz had a relationship in 2006 in which he developed two recipes as part of a communications program for the Keebler Town House brand. A representative of Chef Achatz requested that we remove the recipes from our websites and we have done so."