Corporate leaders have been taste-testing on social media a lot lately. From the ongoing Burgergate debacle to olive oil brand Graza having their employees test their product on spoons, our staff…

Corporate leaders have been taste-testing on social media a lot lately.

From the ongoing Burgergate debacle to olive oil brand Graza having their employees test their product on spoons, our staff wondered: How important is it for an employee to actually like their company’s product?

Poignant inquiries aside, we had Fast Company staffers try out Graza’s new mayo offerings the way the company intended… by the spoonful.

Mya Copeland, Anne Latini, María José Gutiérrez Chávez, Victoria Salves, and Nora Flaherty weigh in.

…more

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Transcript

Transcript
Mayonnaise. Most people love it, or they hate it. I talked to Andrew Benin, cofounder of Graza, the olive oil brand famous for its plastic squeeze bottles, about their new mayo. He told me that when they were developing their version, everyone in the office taste-tested the mayonnaise on a spoon. He isn’t the only CEO taste-testing on social media lately. The Internet had a lot of thoughts when a video of the McDonald’s CEO taking a begrudging bite of their new burger went viral. Burger King posted their own version where their president takes an even bigger bite of a Whopper. Which begs the question, how important is it for employees to actually like their company’s product? You can play all day long in someone’s face and be like, I love it, but you could totally not and it just not matter as long as you execute the sale. You should just be publicly presenting as loving your company’s product. Especially if you’re going to go on a social media video and sample it in public. It would be kind of almost imposter syndrome if you didn’t enjoy it. I think if you’re an employee for a CPG brand, it is important for you to like your product. Back to mayonnaise. Graza sent us their mayo to try, so now we’re asking our staff members to test it the same way. Ohh this is good. This is great. Ooh, that actually tastes like Graza olive oil. I think I just like a richer flavor maybe. Oh, that’s great. That’s great. With fries? Wow. Would be better with fries though. I should have nose-tested these first. I’m picturing a Turkey sandwich I’m picturing. Havarti cheese. I may never be the same.