Snoop Dogg’s cereal lawsuit says his desires died at Walmart

Rappers Snoop Dogg and Grasp P might have already made their mark in hip hop, however their actual dream was to make cereal. Sure, cereal.

Or a minimum of that’s what the 2 performers (who’re price $160 million and $200 million, respectively) say in a brand new lawsuit in opposition to Walmart and Put up Client Manufacturers. The music moguls allege they began their firm Broadus Meals in 2022 “to be a legacy for Snoop Dogg and Grasp P’s household they might depart to assist them create a brighter future.”

It’s true that Broadus Foods marked a milestone for the Black enterprise world. It was the primary Black-owned cereal model within the US, “an African-American model for the American individuals,” as Grasp P put it to Yahoo Finance Reside final 12 months.

However Put up and Walmart tried to break that, the entertainers allege. They approached Put up — which owns Honey Bunches of Oats, Raisin Bran, and different cereal staples — to get their model Snoop Cereal on the cabinets of huge field retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Goal in 2022. Collectively they rolled out Snoop Cereal flavors Fruity Hoopz, Cinnamon Toasteez, and Frosted Drizzlerz the next summer time.

However the flavors by no means made it to the mouths of many a cereal and Snoop Dogg lover. That’s as a result of Put up “basically labored with Walmart to make sure that not one of the packing containers of Snoop Cereal would ever seem on the shop cabinets” in an try to “choke” them out of the market, the artists wrote. As a substitute, the packing containers sat in stockrooms “for months and months,” “regardless of prospects in search of the cereal.”

Snoop Dogg and Grasp P sued Walmart and Put up for $50,000 in a Minnesota district court docket Tuesday (Feb. 6), calling the businesses’ alleged actions “diabolical.” However with Put up’s market cap of $6 billion and Walmart’s $457 billion, the swimsuit is extra symbolic than financially substantive.

Put up didn’t instantly reply to Quartz’s request for remark. Post told NBC Los Angeles that it “was excited to companion with Broadus Meals and we made substantial investments within the enterprise. We have been equally disenchanted that client demand didn’t meet expectations.” Regardless of the swimsuit, Put up Client Manufacturers is doing simply tremendous: its father or mother firm’s inventory value is up about 2% to $105.72 for the reason that criticism was filed.

A Walmart spokesperson instructed Quartz that the corporate “values {our relationships} with our suppliers” and has “a robust historical past of supporting entrepreneurs.” They stated “[m]any components have an effect on the gross sales of any given product, together with client demand, seasonality, and value, to call a number of.”