A Penzeys Spices insider says founder and CEO Bill Penzey's frequent left-wing rants in emails to customers have lost the company more than half of its retail business over the past five years.
"It's been devastating," explains the insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "In 2017, our retail operations department flat out said that Bill's attacks had cost the company 50 percent of our customers."
Penzey has for years made political assaults on Republicans and conservatives a routine part of his "A Note from Bill" emails to customers, but the insider says he ratcheted up his rhetoric after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. His emails made national news, but the publicity generated a backlash even from liberal customers.
"I can't begin to count the number of customers who agree with [Penzey's] politics, but then say they don't like his nastiness," the insider says.
Last week, Penzey admitted in an email to customers that he had lost more than 40,000 subscribers from the company's mailing list after holding a "Republicans are Racist" sale over the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday weekend.
"We’ve set a nice little Boycott Penzeys! surge in motion," Penzey wrote. "It certainly wasn’t unexpected, but if it’s within your means, you picking up a small stack of Gift Cards would help."
Penzey added that while his previous rant had cost his company 40,005 subscribers, it did bring in 30,000 new ones. In spite of that, he said, "we are still down about 10,000. Please help."
He then made an appeal to his customers' politics, imploring them to sign up for his newsletter as a form of virtue signaling.
"If you can’t even begin to fathom how to 'compromise' with January 6th, or the Republican vaccine lies needlessly killing 10,000 Americans every week, if you have no desire to become half-way racist, and if their intent to destroy our climate for one thousand years to come doesn’t have you asking: 'What if we just destroyed it for five-hundred years instead?' we would be better off with you on this Voice Of Cooking email list," he wrote.
"[Penzey] brags about how many people are on our email list, but I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of them aren't actually customers," the insider explains. "They just agree with his politics and sign up every time he makes the news."
Penzeys Spices has not yet responded to a request for comment on the insider's claims or how Penzey's rants have impacted the company's sales.
Penzey's politics made national headlines in 2019, when he announced plans to spend $700,000 on anti-Trump ads. Two weeks ago, when his "Republicans are Racist" email made international news, the backlash was more significant than any the company had seen before.
"It was significant," the insider says. "Business has been very slow."
Penzey's email not only accused all Republicans of being racist, but also of fantasizing about killing black people.
"Remember how Republicans, going against a mountain of evidence to the contrary, once again lied and said BLM wasn't a peaceful movement but instead terrorists inciting violence throughout the country and then raced out to buy a crapload of guns because maybe they were finally going to get their chance to shoot a Black person?" he said. "What a bunch of racists."
At the time, Penzey said he was not worried about turning off customers because, as he told The Daily Mail, "on one hand they wish we would tone down the racism thing but on the other hand we have really good spices and they are not going to sacrifice those."
They did, and in a follow-up email, Penzey attempted to lure them back by offering two $25 Penzeys gift cards for $35. Normally, he explained, Penzeys sells $50 gift cards for $35, but his aim was to make up for the customers who had left after he called all Republicans racist.
"It’s great if you can share these cards and maybe find us new customers, but if the discount makes you being our customer a bit easier, feel free to get them for yourself," he wrote. "We are glad to have you here."
Over the past decade, Penzey has repeatedly followed up controversial emails with offers for free spices in an apparent effort at winning back customers.
"As far as customers unsubscribing from his email list, that's only part of the story," the insider explains. "Many people have told us that they still get the emails, but only come in to our stores for free stuff."