SALT LAKE CITY — Before shutting down its website and operations last month, the ranch-to-home subscription service Just Meats relied heavily on content creators to promote its brand online.
A scroll through the Utah-based company’s Instagram account shows influencers discussing the health and fitness benefits of Just Meats’ precooked proteins; cooking up its herb-roasted chicken breasts; and lifting weights at the gym before coming home to unbox packages of its smoked Texas brisket.
But some of those same content creators are now speaking out against Just Meats – both online and in a group chat with other brand ambassadors – saying the company never paid them for their work.
“These days, being an influencer or a content creator is a legitimate profession,” said Briana Riley, a Michigan-based blogger among those who haven’t yet received a payout. "When companies like Just Meats fail to honor their financial commitments, they’re not only disrespecting our time and effort but they’re also disregarding people’s livelihoods.”
Riley shared invoices with FOX 13 News showing that Just Meats currently owes her over $4,000 – and she knows of content creators who haven’t received payments for even higher figures.
“I’ve since talked to so many other influencers and they’re showing me their agreements and they had flat rates for content that was going to be created and posted on Just Meat’s social channels or used for ads,” she said. “And as the payments remained outstanding, over the summer in particular, this is when a lot of us started to speak out.”
In a statement to FOX 13 News from Just Meats’ attorney in early December, the company said it was doing “everything in its power to pay what is owed to its influencers and important vendors.” “Unfortunately, the company has temporarily ceased operations due to financial hardship,” the statement continued. “We are working to secure additional funding that will allow us to reopen, satisfy our obligations, and continue providing our coveted meat products to our loyal customer base.”
Just Meats suspended orders before shutting down its website in December.
And while the influencers who worked with the company have been most vocal online, they’re not the only ones who claim they haven’t been paid what they’re owed.
Court records show Just Meats and two other now-shuttered businesses founded by the same owner have faced more than a dozen lawsuits in state court since 2022 – adding up to more than $3.5 million in allegedly unpaid debts.
Those lawsuits range from claims of broken lease agreements to outside employment help staffing agencies say they were never paid for to short-term loans that were allegedly never returned.
“This is their third failed business at this point where they had a similar pattern of leaving behind unpaid debts,” Riley said in a recent interview with FOX 13 News. “And had I known that before I agreed to this – and of course many of these influencers as well – I’m pretty sure the majority of us would have said ‘absolutely not’ and wouldn’t have moved forward with the partnership.”
‘Payments just stopped’
But when Just Meats first approached her in 2023, Riley didn’t know any of that. All she knew was that a partnership with the company seemed like a natural fit for her parenting blog, Major League Mommy.
“I share content on quick and easy meals, more nutritious meals," she said. “So I was like, ‘Oh, perfect, this is definitely something that will work for the Major League Mommy audience.’”
Riley agreed to post honest reviews about the company on her blog and Instagram, along with a promotional code. In exchange, Just Meats said it would pay her a percentage of every order a customer made using the code.
In now-deleted Instagram posts, Riley showcased the variety of products available from Just Meats and demonstrated how “quick and easy” it was to make “restaurant-quality pulled pork in just two minutes.”
On her blog, she wrote that she liked the variety of proteins that came in the subscription box and felt like Just Meats made dinnertime faster – though she also said her family found the company’s chicken a little flavorless and wrote about some shipping issues she experienced.
Her posts quickly started to bring in new customers. “I was getting anywhere from like 40 to 50 sales – 50 to 60 sales depending on the month, initially – and that was mostly through the blog post,” Riley said.
She received a few partial paychecks for those commissions in early 2024. But then the money stopped coming – even as emails from Just Meats show the company promised several times that checks had been “cut and signed."
"When April came around, payments just stopped,” she said.
Finally, in July, the company told the influencers that it was “on the brink of failure” and had “no liquid cash” to pay them, according to emails Riley shared with FOX 13 News. Just Meats said it had also missed payroll and implemented layoffs.
The company’s vice president of influencer marketing told the creators that Just Meats was “not benefiting in any way by not paying you” but was in “pure survival mode” as staff waited for expected investments to come through, emails show. “If the funding does not materialize soon, your payments/commission will be delayed and eventually settled, whereas we will be facing unemployment,” he wrote, adding that influencers had “every right to send your dues to collections or take legal action” and should “proceed as you see fit.”
At one point, Riley said the company offered to pay her in meat instead of in cash, as originally promised. But she declined, saying she didn’t have room for thousands of dollars of meat in her freezer and that free product “does not pay the bills.”
“This is a legitimate profession in 2024,” she said, “and I need people to start respecting it as so."
'Thoroughly vet brands’
The Utah Division of Consumer Protection told FOX 13 News that influencers who haven’t received what they were promised may be eligible to make a claim with the agency, depending on the individual facts of their cases.
"If a company says, ‘Hey, we would love for you to promote our product, to share our product with people and we’ll give you some of our product so you can try it,’” but then doesn’t live up to its end of the bargain, “there may be a violation of our Consumer Sales Practices Act,” said Katie Hass, the division’s director.
But she said that the act – which typically safeguards consumers – would probably apply more to less professional influencers than to longtime content creators, like Riley.
“If your business is influencing and that is what you do on a regular basis, this is going to slide into being more of a business-to-business transaction, in which case it would be outside of the scope of the Consumer Sales Practices Act,” she said.
While influencers in those instances may not have recourse under the state’s Consumer Sales Practices Act, Hass said they may have other options, such as pursuing a lawsuit.
As more Utahns strive to become content creators – whether as a full-time job or a side hustle – Hass suggested they always receive written confirmation of any agreements they make with a business to ensure both parties are on the same page.
“It’s just really important as influencers enter into this space – content creators or whatever it is – that they are documenting well their interactions with any business,” she said, noting that such records can make it easier to pursue a complaint later on if needed.
Hass also encouraged influencers to thoroughly research a company before entering an agreement.
That’s something Riley said she and several other influencers did only after they stopped seeing payments – at which point they learned about Just Meats owner Jody Rookstool’s history of other failed companies.
FOX 13 Investigates found that Just Meats and two of Rookstool’s other business ventures – a fast-casual restaurant chain called FeastBox and a meal subscription service called QuickFresh, which have both since shut down – have faced more than a dozen lawsuits since 2022 for allegedly unpaid debts.
That revelation made Riley doubtful that she’ll ever see the money she’s owed. But she said the experience has changed the way she partners with companies. And she hopes that by speaking out, others can learn from what she’s been through.
“I really want this to serve as a reminder to all creators,” she said, “to thoroughly vet brands before agreeing to a partnership.”
