Whole Foods’ staff designed those meat logos on their own — Amazon didn’t tell them to

Chances are you’ve seen that Amazon meat logo from Whole Foods screaming across the internet.

Here’s how it came about.

First off, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t commission an LA Whole Foods meat department to sculpt an Amazon logo out of ground beef to commemorate its $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods. That would have been the ultimate in Amazon branding.

We called the Whole Foods meat department at the Playa Vista, Calif., location to find out how they did it. An employee in the meat department said “one of the managers” thought it would be fun to stamp the Amazon logo into meat. No one at Whole Foods corporate or Amazon suggested it.

So, one of the meat guys* used a paper cutout of the Amazon logo as a guide for how to mold the meat into the shape of the logo. It was probably hand-formed, so you could argue it was in keeping with the Whole Foods ethos of local, organic, no-machine-made goodness.

Whole Foods did do plenty of other (official) promotion for Amazon’s Whole Foods merger, including deep price cuts on popular items and displays of its Echo speakers, but the meat font was all meat-counter ingenuity. So, bravo, Playa Vista Whole Foods, for providing the internet a moment of meat merger entertainment.

We also reached out to Amazon for comment.

* The meat guys at the counter answered our questions, but they didn’t want to be identified by name.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

We have a request

Vox's journalism is free because we believe that everyone deserves to understand the world that they live in. That kind of knowledge helps create better citizens, neighbors, friends, parents, consumers and stewards of this planet. In short, understanding benefits everyone. You can join in on this mission by making a financial gift to Vox today. Reader support helps keep our work free, for everyone. Will you join us?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$95/year

$120/year

$250/year

$350/year

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $120/year

Yes, I'll give $120/year

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via