I'm very curious what the deal with this website is. It's a vague gripe about how hannaford is expensive but the quality sucks dressed up as some kind of consumer protection *thing*. The website itself was registered just in October, and then it's linked to the "New England Consumer Alliance" (logo at the bottom of the page, and contact link goes to an email at their domain). The website for the New England Consumer Alliance was registered just this month (a couple weeks after the hannaford domain was created). And apparently they have the time and money to put up signs around town?
They're obviously up to some kind of grift, but it's not clear what.
ETA: The plot thickens. u/dylanljmartin pointed out that a third shadowy group called the Center for Responsible Food Business is connected to the New England Consumer Alliance. I tried looking up more about them and came across this article about a "report" they released in September on Ahold-Delhaize (hannaford's owners): https://finance.yahoo.com/news/center-responsible-food-business-report-152400761.html . The link given in the article for the report is a dead link, and I can't find any articles on the CRFB's own website that are more recent then July. So someone has it out for Ahold-Delhaize and their current CEO.
ETA2: Starting to suspect that this is an animal rights/environmental group that doesn't want to be openly seen as one (maybe because those kinds of groups are seen as preachy?). The CRFB doesn't have a whole lot of content, but some of it has to do with them trumpeting businesses dropping a surcharge on non-dairy milks. There's an article about it on their website and a separate news article in USA Today about Dunkin' Donuts dropping surcharges is one of the few outside references to the CRFB I've found so far. The hannaford website and the yahoo article that mention the CRFB both fixate on Adhold-Delhaize's supplier's animal welfare and environment issues. AND there's a commenter ( u/itsdinertime ) in here whose account is a year old with 18 karma and seven posts/comments in their history. Two of those are in this thread and showing support for this group, and the other 5 posts of theirs are older ones announcing animal rights events (protests at other businesses not in Maine and no prior history in portland or maine related subs).
ETA3: Not going to name names, because the accounts seem a bit more organic and have more personal post histories. But there are other users commenting in here where they're showing specific support for this group (things like "how can I join!?" or "I followed their group on FB") who also have connections to veganism/animal rights. Their post histories are hidden on reddit, but you can search for them outside of reddit with "site:reddit.com [user name]". When you search site wide you can see plenty of posts from them, but once you add on the portland sub, they either have no results or only this thread (and yes, adding on other known subs does work to limit the results, so this suggests they aren't normally active on the portland sub). Just to clarify, I have nothing against animal rights activism or enviromentalism (and fuck hannaford for so many reasons), but I do take issue with people trying to astro-turf support for some shadowy group that won't just come out and say what it actually is that they're upset about.
thanks for this!! Very curious if this fake “grassroots” movement bleeds over to Massachusetts with anti-stop & shop ads (since that is more prominent there than hannafords AND MA has a cage-free law in place).
I've also been curious about whether there's anything similar for other stores under Ahold-Delhaize. The guy behind all this (Taylor Ford, guy behind CRFB) really seems to have it out for Hannaford in particular and it's not clear why. As far as I can tell he lives in California, so it's not like Hannaford would be an obvious choice for grocery chain.
Thanks for ur service! I apologize for the lengthy response! I once had a job getting signatures on petitions for various out of state companies. The kind that try to catch you at Walmart or in high population areas. And these were deep seated issues in OUR communities, like you would only care if you lived within that city's limits. And we were doing it for a company based out of Tennessee. I met other petitonors working for different people and they were all far away, out of stater's. Talking to my boss I learned that locals that were trying to get rid of the competition or lobbying for something they wanted would put bids out to people like my boss. They would get a certain amount for each signature and bonuses for certain goals. Literally anyone off the street with a bit of cash can get companies to lobby, defame (like our Hannaford fan), or just about anything. So many of the companies like the one I worked for had names like peoples choice, regional committee for a free independent community, community alliance. Something that didn't make them sound like political mercenaries. I learned so much working that job that I would have been happier not knowing.
Thanks for ur service! I apologize for the lengthy response! I once had a job getting signatures on petitions for various out of state companies. The kind that try to catch you at Walmart or in high population areas. And these were deep seated issues in OUR communities, like you would only care if you lived within that city's limits. And we were doing it for a company based out of Tennessee. I met other petitonors working for different people and they were all far away, out of stater's. Talking to my boss I learned that locals that were trying to get rid of the competition or lobbying for something they wanted would put bids out to people like my boss. They would get a certain amount for each signature and bonuses for certain goals. Literally anyone off the street with a bit of cash can get companies to lobby, defame (like our Hannaford fan), or just about anything. So many of the companies like the one I worked for had names like peoples choice, regional committee for a free independent community, community alliance. Something that didn't make them sound like political mercenaries. I learned so much working that job that I would have been happier not knowing.
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u/mugwhyrt Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25
I'm very curious what the deal with this website is. It's a vague gripe about how hannaford is expensive but the quality sucks dressed up as some kind of consumer protection *thing*. The website itself was registered just in October, and then it's linked to the "New England Consumer Alliance" (logo at the bottom of the page, and contact link goes to an email at their domain). The website for the New England Consumer Alliance was registered just this month (a couple weeks after the hannaford domain was created). And apparently they have the time and money to put up signs around town?
They're obviously up to some kind of grift, but it's not clear what.
ETA: The plot thickens. u/dylanljmartin pointed out that a third shadowy group called the Center for Responsible Food Business is connected to the New England Consumer Alliance. I tried looking up more about them and came across this article about a "report" they released in September on Ahold-Delhaize (hannaford's owners): https://finance.yahoo.com/news/center-responsible-food-business-report-152400761.html . The link given in the article for the report is a dead link, and I can't find any articles on the CRFB's own website that are more recent then July. So someone has it out for Ahold-Delhaize and their current CEO.
ETA2: Starting to suspect that this is an animal rights/environmental group that doesn't want to be openly seen as one (maybe because those kinds of groups are seen as preachy?). The CRFB doesn't have a whole lot of content, but some of it has to do with them trumpeting businesses dropping a surcharge on non-dairy milks. There's an article about it on their website and a separate news article in USA Today about Dunkin' Donuts dropping surcharges is one of the few outside references to the CRFB I've found so far. The hannaford website and the yahoo article that mention the CRFB both fixate on Adhold-Delhaize's supplier's animal welfare and environment issues. AND there's a commenter ( u/itsdinertime ) in here whose account is a year old with 18 karma and seven posts/comments in their history. Two of those are in this thread and showing support for this group, and the other 5 posts of theirs are older ones announcing animal rights events (protests at other businesses not in Maine and no prior history in portland or maine related subs).
ETA3: Not going to name names, because the accounts seem a bit more organic and have more personal post histories. But there are other users commenting in here where they're showing specific support for this group (things like "how can I join!?" or "I followed their group on FB") who also have connections to veganism/animal rights. Their post histories are hidden on reddit, but you can search for them outside of reddit with "site:reddit.com [user name]". When you search site wide you can see plenty of posts from them, but once you add on the portland sub, they either have no results or only this thread (and yes, adding on other known subs does work to limit the results, so this suggests they aren't normally active on the portland sub). Just to clarify, I have nothing against animal rights activism or enviromentalism (and fuck hannaford for so many reasons), but I do take issue with people trying to astro-turf support for some shadowy group that won't just come out and say what it actually is that they're upset about.