The past week has seen a full-fledged panic from the British media over the Duchess of Sussex’s jam/spread. This panic is manufactured, much like the jam. They’ve really tried to make it into a thing, that “there’s growing outrage over Meghan’s REFUSAL to make her As Ever jam in her own home!” The Mail in particular has been on a crusade against… manufacturing, and outsourcing jam production to a company which can mass-produce. Personally, as someone who ordered two jars of apricot spread in the first two minutes of the Summer Solstice drop, I think people are missing the actual “scandal” – the demand for As Ever’s “hero product,” the spread, is so high that it actually caused a huge malfunction in As Ever’s product-log system. So now As Ever has to issue refunds, and they’re promising to eventually send out free bottles of jam to those of us with canceled orders. As the Mail reported on all of this, they actually got an interesting statement from Netflix:
Last night a source close to Meghan confirmed to the Daily Mail that Republic of Tea makes her As Ever raspberry spread but said the supplier was changing. The firm also makes her sold-out orange blossom honey – priced at $28 a jar.
In a statement, US streaming giant Netflix said: ‘Netflix and As Ever take pride in working with best-in-class vendors that meet our high standards for exceptional products.
‘It’s been exciting to see how much fans have embraced the As Ever product line, with the first two launches selling out so quickly.
‘We’re looking forward to continued success as we expand and release more As Ever products throughout the year and beyond.’
The Republic of Tea was approached for comment.
Incidentally, many have questioned whether Republic of Tea is actually manufacturing the jam. I doubt it – I think the British idiots have just latched onto RoT because they were able to figure out that the company is doing As Ever’s tea. I think the jam is likely manufactured elsewhere. As for Netflix’s statement – “We’re looking forward to continued success as we expand and release more As Ever products throughout the year and beyond.” But… but… Netflix isn’t going to renew their contract with the Sussexes! But my neighbor’s aunt’s dog-walker’s lesbian lover works at Netflix and they said Netflix hates Meghan! Yeah, Netflix loves being in the Sussex business.
Photos courtesy of As Ever’s IG.
NB ROT and other suppliers, when the Fail comes knocking, just have the “no comment” sign out. It will save a lot of heartache in future. I’m sure these suppliers have signed NDAs. They’d be silly not to – both to protect their reputation and their employees from harassment.
The DM is so crazy. ‘Please, tell us who you are so we can harass you for daring to make money with this woman’. How on earth does this not make their little brains go pop?
So Netflix (who according to “sources”want to drop her) is wanting to expand with her As Ever brand. Well now that just sucks for the liars on salty isle,
yep, throughout the year and beyond cannot be more clear. It almost sounds like to infinity and beyond! I’m just patiently waiting for a holiday special announcement. Meghan could make some sort of basic Christmas ornament and it would sell out, lol.
Yes a Christmas special would be great!!
I love love love that Netflix came out to support her with full chest. She must have been crushed by the jam snafu, and I feel for her. I was critical of her comms strategy earlier, but she is not alone in this and she should be able to rely on his partner (Netflix).
Yeah, if you check the Republic of Tea site there’s no trace of any non-tea products. No way they suddenly went into the jam business. They do have a fairly prominent ethics statement, which was likely a factor in Meghan choosing them to produce the tea blends she created. The British tabs are staffed by such morons. .
They don’t “make” Meghan’s sold-out orange blossom honey either. Busy bees do that. They probably don’t even package the honey, or anything other than teas. Republic of Tea does wonderful tea blends — and seems like a great partner for As ever.
Maybe it’s just me, but lately trash rags like DM seem to be slipping in quite a few positive comments about Meghan — along with their usual venom. I wonder if even they have thought about what their royal beat writers might get to write about during the next boringly slimmed down decade or so, and realized that they might need to stretch themselves a bit.
I mean their hate campaign is having diminishing returns. They may hate her for various reasons but they aren’t stupid. Their third hand accounts featuring three dead people about something she did 8 years ago just doesn’t hit the same.
They went all out to review bomb With Love, Meghan and it still was in the top 10 in 40 countries. They’re trying to make a big deal about her not cackling over a cauldron like a witch personally making her jam for mass consumption, as if anyone expects that at all. Even hit pieces in “respectable” media like The Hollywood reporter and Vanity Fair isn’t hitting the same. People are just rolling their eyes at this point.
In 2018 the rash of hate stories caught my attention.
I was very suspicious about the sheer number of tabloid stories.
They have not learned their lesson. Seven years later and they continue with the same playbook.
I am seeing more and more people who don’t follow the royal family (with a small r) calling out this foolishness.
They tried to publicly lynch Meghan Markle starting in 2018. They have failed but are so delusional that they persist.
It’s the British (?) thing: “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.”
One of the daily mail’s chief editors apparently announced at some forum or other that she wants M’s name to be tied to their rag so that when people search for M’s name articles from the DM show up first. They know that their hate campaign is losing ground, so they are STILL continuing with the hate campaign (make no mistake about this), but they are putting in some positive-sounding comments to make it look as though they have, or are, changing. This is one of the reasons why I hate when some less discerning Squaddies share articles which are clearly hateful articles, but try to justify it because “at least they included this positive thing”. They have realised that this is one way to get more clicks from certain audiences.
So she sued them and won and they had to pay her substantial damages, but they are still trying to monetise her in whichever ways they can. Leeches, the lot of them. Or vultures, as her lovely mother called them in the Netflix documentary.
Of course, “throughout the year and beyond.” There are so many food/cooking/hostess products that can tie into WLM – I’m sure they’re in the pipeline now. And I think Meghan’s soft and friendly vibe is what people are looking for now – everything has been harsh and remote for quite some time.
Agreed, Meghan’s product line, including her show, gives us permission to find joy in kindness and simplicity, even though the planet feels like a dumpster fire right now. There could not have been a better time for As Ever and WLM.
Sincerely, thank you, Meghan!
Thanks to an Instagram reminder, I was able to buy three bottles of the rosé. I’m crossing my fingers I don’t get an out-of-stock email because I really want to try it.
I’m hoping to get the jam on her next go around.
The issue appears to be with the supplier for the spread and honey. Her wine supplier is used to supplying celebrity brands so hopefully you will be fine.
The word beyond is delicious. Well done Netflix spokesperson.
Maybe As Ever can consider taking pre-orders to gauge the demand before going live?
That is why Meghan stopped her podcast series, even thought it had the potential to do a few more seasons. As Ever has a huge profitable future and she needs to focus on that full time. The demand is very high and she is currently only selling in USA. It can be a huge hit on multiple markets.
I’ve been waiting for the tableware since I saw the ARO monochrome calligraphy and thought that would look lovely on a plate. 🤣
ARO is no more, but I’m sure Meghan can come up with an even better calligraphy design for As Ever. And since we have wine and tea, she could start giving us accompanying glasses and a tea set for Christmas 😉
I can but dream 😴 😌
The production of the tea doesn’t seem to be the problem, it’s the fruit spread.
I suspect Meghan is completely overwhelmed by every drop selling out. It’s a double edged sword having fantastic demand yet how can they formulate projections for stock if, with the second drop, scaling up by x10 wasn’t enough?
They need a drop to have enough stock to last for a couple of days at least to get a real indicator of true demand before they can consider expanding the line. Same with the wine.
It’s an unique and kinda scary position for a business to find itself in.
Well, letting people buy up to six products was a mistake, but having done such a massive scale up, I can see they might have worried they’d have too much left on hand. Now they have at least one more data point, although as it looks like there were technical and other issues with the ordering process, it may take a little time to sort out what the results mean for production capacity.
Of course Netflix is looking forward to expanding As Ever. No idea the contract or how involved they actually are or WHAT – but Netflix is a for profit company and everything Meghan touches sells out. Of course Netflix wants a bigger piece of that pie. It makes me look at the company a little differently – its clear Sarandos knew what he was doing when he signed H&M and its clear he’s very happy with the results.
I see the Netflix partnership with HRH Meghan as Netflix & Sarandos having gotten the proverbial “goose that lays the golden eggs”. The stakeholders at Netflix must be rubbing their hands with joy as they visualize the company’s future, linked to Meghan and the buying power of her supporters.
On the other hand, the royals, haters & their tabloids must be shaking with rage and fear. They are seeing their worst case scenario come to life. Not only is Meghan thriving; her supporters are buying. Big time. And in so doing, they are revealing themselves to be that sought-after demographic, people with disposable income who are not afraid to spend.
The site administrators for As Ever might consider a queuing system for the launches. So the site only admits a certain number of people into the site at a time and the rest wait in the queue until their turn. This enables people to buy, check out and leave the site before new people are added in to purchase. It slows down how fast the servers are going to which probably causes them to lose track of how many things have sold. A queuing system would probably give them a more accurate count of actual processed/checked out inventory. That way they know what’s sold out before people accidentally buy.
I know a couple of sites that do this during in demand drops. Fairyloot does it for high demand special edition book releases. I think B&BW does it for online candle day sales too.
Oh I didn’t know smaller companies do this too. I know big companies like Ticketmaster does it.
Canadian national parks do this for reservations at specific national parks like Banff and Lake Louise that open for several months on a specific date. I logged in right away and was number 30,000 something, and it took an hour to get in, but there were still spots available, and it did not kill their servers!
They might also try having opening dates for specific products, like they are doing with the wine, A date and time for jam and one for honey, etc.
And they probably need to limit purchases so individuals cannot buy cases of products. That would enable more people to purchase one or two jars of something.