Overview of PF's Unfair Club Store Buy Back Initiative
The mission of POAA is to Develop, Enhance and Maintain Profitability and Equity of the Pepperidge Farm Business Owner.
Team POAA Gives Meaning to the Phrase "In Business For Yourself, Not By Yourself!"
FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY
The opinions and beliefs expressed in this newsletter are intended only to spark discussions about a serious and ongoing business issue that impacts every owner in PF’s distribution network - namely, PF’s unfair club store buy back initiative. If you need or want legal advice, you must consult with your attorney.
CLUB STORE BUY BACK OVERVIEW
Be aware! POAA received reports that VP Kyle Jordan is calling owners about PF’s desire to buy for itself their exclusive rights to current and future club store accounts. Consequently, every owner should know that only the 2001 version of the Blue Distributorship Contract includes the controversial term “portion”. Owners and their attorneys have reported to POAA that PF asserts the term “portion” was originally intended by both contracting parties to authorize it to buy back current and “future” exclusive rights to the undefined “club store” type of “retail stores” for “fair market value” - even when an owner is unwilling to sell. Owners disagree.
Reports about PF’s positions regarding its buy back rights are especially curious because owners assert that they intended “portion” to mean that PF could buy back only whatever retail stores fell within a subdivision of their exclusive geographic territory, not the current and future rights to undefined types of retail stores throughout their entire exclusive territory. Moreover, a “willingness to sell” in a voluntary transaction is the threshold requirement to establish fair market value for current and future rights. A forced sale, therefore, cannot satisfy the definition of fair market value and, instead, results in an “imposed value”, which is a rare right typically reserved for government authorities under very limited circumstances (e.g. eminent domain, IRS, etc.).
Significantly, earlier versions of the Blue Distributorship Contracts only grant PF the right to buy back whole distributorships, which is essentially the same as its termination without cause rights, except PF can buy back the whole distributorship for itself rather than resell it to a new independent owner. POAA can only speculate about why PF wants to compete against owners for sales within their exclusive territories, but it is likely motivated by making more money at the expense of the owners who helped build PF into a multi-billion dollar wholly owned subsidiary of Campbell Soup Company (NYSE: CPB).
TeamPOAA is grateful to everyone who shares feedback to our newsletters and participates in the brainstorming discussions during our Zoom Meetings. We encourage all of you to be even more proactive: start discussions in your depots, listen to your colleagues, identify business issues that impact most (or all) owners, and help inactive owners appreciate the fact that we are stronger together. We urge active owners to extol the advantages of active membership, and to invite your friends to join the discussions.
If you already have a FREE Zoom account, the meeting code is 860 4691 4758
TIP OF THE WEEK
On June 5. 2020, the federal government updated the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020, better known as PPP, to create a new, easier path to full loan forgiveness for small business owners.
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You are receiving this email because you own an Exclusive Pepperidge Farm Franchise and/or an Exclusive Pepperidge Farm Distributorship, and you should know that the Pepperidge Farm Owners Association of America is proactively protecting your rights.
