Brand Failures

198 Brand failures
72 Guiltless Gourmet
Helping the competition
Although most people failures are a result of unscrupulous decisions or
vicious personality clashes, on rare occasions people let their brands down
despite having the best of intentions. This is what happened to Michael P
Schall’s brand, Guiltless Gourmet, when he gave away the secrets of his
success to his chief competition.
In the 1990s, Guiltless Gourmet was a small business success story which
attracted a great deal of attention in its native Texas. The company, which
made baked, low-fat tortilla chips, had evolved in the space of five years from
being a home-based operation into a US $23 million business with a massive
factory.
In addition to media support, the company also had endorsement from
such lofty US health authorities as the Center for Science in the Public
Interest, which supported claims that the Guiltless Gourmet range was a
healthy – indeed ‘guiltless’ – alternative to other snack brands.
As is so often the case, Guiltless Gourmet soon became a victim of its own
success. Frito-Lay, one of the largest US companies producing snack-food
(and normally of the ‘guilt-filled’ rather than ‘guiltless’ variety) had watched
the phenomenal growth of this small Texan company and wanted a piece of
the action.
Schall, the owner of Guiltless Gourmet, had worked as a consultant for
Frito-Lay, and had even invited the company to acquire the brand. But Frito-
Lay hadn’t warmed to that idea. Instead, it wanted to create an entirely new