Kroger ‘embarrassed’ after small business says company stole, edited its photos

CINCINNATI — A small business said Kroger stole and edited its images to market peach products.

Stephen Rose, co-founder of The Peach Truck, a small Nashville-based business, took to social media to point out the image similarities.

In an Instagram post, Rose showed images Kroger used to promote their new initiative to sell peaches out of trucks at scheduled events during the summer.

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One image showed someone Rose recognized to be his employee, but instead of holding their products and wearing their uniform, the employee was wearing a Kroger uniform with Kroger branded boxes.

Rose showed another photo that appeared to be nearly identical, except with the branding switched out.

“Kroger, you are a multi-billion — yes, billion with a ‘b’ — dollar corporation. Do you really need to take our marketing and re-edit it on top of taking our business model?” Rose said.

“We were embarrassed to learn about this,” said a Kroger spokesperson to our news partners at WCPO. “You could say we have peach on our face! While these images were not approved to be shared as part of our marketing campaign, they should never have been created in the first place. We have removed the images from our system. We apologize to The Peach Truck and wish them nothing but success.”

The images are no longer available online.

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