The Profit - Fuel Food Update

Photo - CNBC

Tonight on The Profit Marcus Lemonis is in West Palm Beach, Florida with hopes of making a deal with Fuel Food.  Fuel Food is a company that provides fresh, healthy meals that are delivered to customers.  Despite increasing sales, Marcus feels that the corporate culture of Fuel Food is off and they could improve their shipping process.  Also, it isn't too clear who is invested in the business.

Let's take a look at some information related to Fuel Food as well as what kind of deal was made on the show.



News and Links Related To The Company:

• Here is the Fuel Food website (website was taken down)
• Here is the Fuel Food Facebook page (page was taken down) and Twitter page
• Here is an extended sneak peak of the episode and a business profile video of Fuel Food from the CNBC website.
• Here is an interview with Erik on the local news in 2014.  He says 90% of customers stay for life and they had about 90 employees working at the time of the interview.
• According to the Fuel Food website, they are partners with the Miami Heat and sponsor athletes such as UFC fighter Thiago "Pitbull" Alves.  There are over 30 athletes listed on their sponsored athletes page.
• Erik Leander was a professional boxer and has a record of 11-2 and has a nickname of "The Viking".  Here is Erik's Facebook page.
• Fuel Food held a contest (Link was taken down) called National Miss Fuel Food Model Search with the winner getting over $25,000 worth of prizes.  The prize consisted of "$12,000 promotional modeling contract with FuelFood, $12,000 worth of FuelFood delivered weekly to your door, and a 1 year gym membership with a gym near you."  The winner was crowned on April 15th.
• Supposedly someone named Paul Schumak was an investor in Fuel Foods, and he got in trouble for a Ponzi scheme in Florida.  There is also a Facebook Page set up for investors in the scheme to complain/get updates on the situation.  A complaintsboard website and that Facebook page claim money from the Ponzi scheme was used to invest in Fuel Foods.  A document (page 14) says $779, 216 was given to Fuel Foods Inc.
• An article in the Palm Beach Post states, "Schumack, charged along with Joseph Signore and Signore’s wife Laura, agreed last year to voluntarily transfer to a court-appointed receiver all his assets, including shares of Fuel Foods....When asked about Schumack’s investment in his company, Leander at first reveals only that there is a “receiver issue” with a major shareholder who owns 46 percent of Fuel Foods"
• Here are the most recent Yelp reviews for Fuel Food.  Pretty much every review is 1-star and there are complaints about people having trouble canceling their plans and getting overcharged on their credit cards.  People also complain about the food quality and customer service.

With the Ponzi scheme investor background, money still being spent on models, and terrible Yelp reviews, I would expect no deal to be made in this episode.


The Deal From The Episode Plus Post-Show Updates (this will be updated continually):  

• Marcus' initial offer - $300,000 for 51% of the business - To pay off the debt of about $200,000 and provide $100,000 of working capital.  He will also need the other shareholders to sign off on the deal.

As expected, the deal went bad and Marcus walked out.  Of course it was due to the Ponzi scheme investment in Fuel Foods, and there is more information about that above.

UPDATE - The bad Yelp reviews continued and many people complained about being ripped off by Fuel Food.  It looks like they shut down around January 2017.  Their website has expired and their Facebook page has been taken down.

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