The Chaser Report - A Crumbling Cookie Empire

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Dom Knight shares how a cookie company managed to sell overpriced cookies to gullible Sydneysiders. Meanwhile Andrew Hansen has the latest on a trend sweeping TikTok: grave cleaning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Andrew today. There are so many very important stories in the world today. The biggest story, of course, I think in Australia at the moment, is Crumblegates. Crumblegates. You'd be across Crumblegates. You're across this stuff. I've been very snowed under with work, Domney, and I've somehow missed the enormous story of of Crumblegate that you've just described.

I've completely missed it. Crumbull cookies is a chain of bakeries from Utah. The thing is that people brought some crumbull cookies out to Australia. Sold them for $17.50 a pop, and it was completely unauthorised. The scandal is powerful. So I'll talk about that. And then finally, you've got an important TikTok update for us. Oh, goodness me.

You wouldn't believe what's going on there. Good deeds, Dommy. Good deeds are being done by people on the old talk. You know the problem of when you're dead, right? And your grave, the problem with having a grave, it's huge because you can't clean your gravestone, can you? No. You have to rely on somebody else. And of course, if you're not very popular, you know,

or if people have kind of lost interest, the problem is your gravestone gets a bit grotty because nobody's looking after it. Well, I'm pleased to say that there is a TikTok trend of videos of people doing wonderful service and going around and just giving gravestones a good old scrub. How delightful. And what a great way to honour the traditional Chinese Qing Ming festival.

Or do you think it's possible that perhaps these TikTokers have never even heard of Qing Ming? I believe it's got nothing to do with Qing Ming. It's more to do with Qing, look at me. Aren't I a wonderful person? Please share my TikTok video. Aren't I magnificent? All right, let's get in some of those stories in just a moment. So this is strange because, I mean, this is a thing.

I mean, in China, people do clean graves as a way of showing tribute, you know, respecting their ancestors. Oh, is that what they do? But do they post it on TikTok, hoping for likes? See, if they don't, they're missing a trick. I've always said that a good deed that isn't filmed and immediately put on social media. Why bother? Why bother doing any charitable act? Why bother doing that deed?

It's not even a deed. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. If a tree falls in a forest and isn't immediately posted on TikTok, it never fell. Exactly. Same with a swept and polished grave. I mean, it's amazing in these videos. People have got sponges out to clean them.

these graves? Because I didn't really know how to clean a grave. I mean, you know, you sort of, you've got like handy hints of how to clean things around the house. Oh, yes. Where's the sort of spotless book on? Yeah, we've got a copy of spotless, you know. But spotless never, the one thing the authors of that book forgot to do was explain how to scrub a tombstone properly. Well, let's be clear on what's being cleaned here. Are they cleaning the outside or the inside? Because I think, and I'd be impressed if they're cleaning up the inside and, you know, just getting rid of the dust and the sort of unpleasant stuff that's inside. Just clean it up.

Get it nice and minty fresh. Citrus smell. You need a good clean in there. Well, it should. It would be quite dirty and it would need a bit of a clean. It would need a bit of a clean. You know, you could get the Hoover out. Couldn't you get the Dyson?

You could. I'd be very impressed, actually. If people wanted to clean the inside of a grave, I mean, there's a shortage of grave site. Surely after a certain point in time, that's enough, isn't it? You've been recycled. What were you right, yeah, about the shortage? Yeah.

Yeah, well, but they've got to look good. I mean, you want an Instagramable grave, I think. I mean, speaking of social media, you've got TikTok for the cleaning, but then I think it needs to look good enough to pop your grave on Insta. And the inside of the grave too, Dommy, I absolutely agree. I think it would be very respectful to go around

and dig up people's graves with a shovel, then get down in there with your dice and hoover up all the dust and debris, bits of knuckle bones or whatever that have fallen off. The teeth. And, you know, get it looking better. Yes, I'm just. Some resourging for the graves.

Where's queer eye for the dead guy? Why aren't they coming in and doing a bit of a renovation rescue? Because the thing is, a lot of these graves, Andrew, as you know, they're all sort of mouldy stone with moss on them. Shabby, shabby things. That's not chic in 2024. No, it's not cool. No, you want an architecturally designed grave, I think.

Yeah, minimalist. Yeah, I think, you know. Except I must say these days it's so cheap to get LED flashing lights. that I think that's the direction I'd go in, solar-powered, classy, like flashing, like flashing red and just sort of a rainbow for people to remember me by, just a lovely colour-changing grave. I like you thinking there, don't we? Like, yeah, pimp my plot.

I think this is really good. That's exactly it. You could get all kinds of designers. Yeah, we need a bit of more grave pride is what's at the heart of this, isn't it? Because people, you know, I feel like people, we've got, we're proud about other thing. We dress well nowadays, we try to, you know, and we try and have beautifully renovated houses, but we look quite lazy about their own grave sites, I think, and we need to really step it up. And it just needs regular renovations, like any house.

Like, you know, just because you're dead doesn't mean you shouldn't constantly have renovations going through. You should. And some sort of process of, you know, just get the DA through, make it a bit better. Make it a nice place to spend time. Well, this is the thing. You've got to check, though. I imagine the corpse has to check them. make sure their grave is not heritage listed or has a heritage overlay.

That's true. That's true. You might have to retain the façade. Oh, yes. And then just rebuild the facade and put a modern glass building behind. Why isn't glass used more in graves, actually? That's a good point. Modern construction.

Everything's that amazing sort of see-through durable glass. A bit more light. I mean, it's so dark in a grave. There's no natural light for the corpse to enjoy. There's no Alfresco. What happened to that Australian Alfresco living? It's very Aussie, I think. I mean, I'd like to see a grave with a patio. Yeah. So that you could perhaps, you know, maybe a little bit of barbecue just next to it on the patio.

We are a fusion culture. So you could take the very respectful Chinese tradition of going and sweeping the graves once a year to show respect to your ancestors. You could fuse that idea with contemporary Australian shallowness and not do it. for your ancestors or out of respect for anybody. You'd be doing your own. You'd be trooping your own grave before. See, what we need to do is, I mean, property is so expensive in Australia. If you think about it now, we all need to buy our plots now and fix them up.

Like, get a nice fixer-u-up. I think you're right. Because if you don't get in early, you'll get, you know, we need to really rush, you're right, to buy these gravesites. I mean, I've got FOMO now. I've got grave-fomo. Wait till the Burmists start getting in on that. That's where the next property they all buy.

There'll be investors. They're people, I assume, who invest in graves And you'd have to rent it from them They're negative gearing, isn't there? They're negative gearing. I mean, once you're... Oh, maybe negative gearing their graves, they would. So you own it until you die, then it goes to the estate.

And so you're basically negative gearing it because you don't own it anymore. Your estate owns it. So you're someone else's a tenant. It's a great tax lurk. I think we should all get on this. They're onto a wicket. Imagine the, yes, yes.

I mean, I'm sure franking credits are somehow involved in this whole scheme, but I don't understand how they would be, but they will. I bet they are. I bet they are. Or like an afford is a, you know, one square metre plot, I'd say. Well, no, you and I, I mean, it's you and I. We might be okay because we're Gen X. We might be able to just get in on the grave.

But I do feel sorry for Gen Z because they're going to be renting their grave site forever. It's because they're spending on that money. Being buried with smashed avocado. That's right, yes. If you didn't do that, I know. And probably eating themselves to an early grave by eating too much avocado. Yeah. It's their own fault, really.

We've got to say. In a moment. I will reveal about the cookie scandal. And you can tell me who is right. This is a moral dilemma. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. So there's a company called Crumbles, C-R-U-M-B-L. And the concept is that they're the best cookies in the world.

I gather. That's the concept. But isn't this the concept behind every cookie company, Domlo? I was skeptical of this. But I'm looking at their website, Crumbull Cookies.com. And I must say, the Tres Lechess cookies, cookies. Or the maple cream sandwich Or even the caramel apple

These things look absolutely amazing The chocolate peanut butter pie Andrew These things are Now you're talking Yeah absolutely So I mean these things are very popular Again they're big on TikTok And there's been quite a scandal

Because what happened last week I think in Sydney Is that there's a lot of excitement Because in Bondi Where all bad things happen You know normally they just bring in lots of cocaine And Kiw backpackers But someone brought in

crumble cookies and they advertise the crumble cookies are coming you can come and get there it was on Sunday of last week and it was very very popular sort of five days ago or something and people went and queued up for the crumble huge queue massive I'm looking at the images

now it's absolutely huge really people quees this drives me mad when people queues I mean they sound like good cookies they are good cookies but is anything worth a key well you and I are of an age where we don't queue right I'm guessing every single person in the queue is less than 28 years old. Yeah, they don't own houses already. So the problem with it is they were charging

$17.50 for a cookie. And at that point... Oh, but that's about normal nowadays, isn't it? Doesn't a Tim Tam cost $17 now for it? Coles and Woolworths because of the inflated prices? Oh, you get half a Tim Tam now, I think. But by the time he went to the front of the queue, Andrew, it's a sunk cost. Don't you have to basically have it at that point? Or you wait for it as more. I can see someone had one. If you've queued up, yeah. That's right. It's the only It's the only option, really. Well, see, here's the trick. The trick is that they were not official crumbles.

What happened was? Oh, right, I'm not across this. This is a, oh, they weren't real crumbles. I know. It's a huge scandal. Well, no, they were real crumble cookie. Someone flew to Hawaii, spent thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars on crumble cookies, imported them into Australia,

and then somehow rented a shop in Bondi and bought them. Why wouldn't you, if you're going to go to that trouble, why wouldn't you just ring up crumble and say, hey, I love your cookies. Can I open a franchise store here in Australia? I mean, wouldn't you do that? Wouldn't that be easier? They normally cost 20 Australian dollars for a four-pack.

Oh, that's very funny. So they flew to Hawaii. They bought something like 700 cookies or something like that and brought them back to Australia. Flew them back. What is the suitcase? Yes, with the boxes. and sold these things.

And my whole issue with this, my whole issue with this is, who is lost out from this? Everyone's complaining about it. They've lost, they'd registered the handle of Crumble AUS, Australia. But idiots in Bondi get their overpriced cookies to put on Instagram. These guys presumably make some sort of a profit. Who is missing out? Crumble got to sell the cookies.

No one took away their revenue. They got to sell hundreds of cookies to these travellers. I mean, I suppose the biggest downside is the, the kind of carbon emissions on this ridiculous trip like the trees that are dying because some idiots can get crumbull cookies whatever they are. I just think this is a victimless crime.

I don't know why people are getting so cross on TikTok. I agree with you, Tommy. There's no, yeah, there's nobody. I suppose they're getting, yeah, why are they getting crumbulled? Because they were legitimate crumble cookies, weren't they? If someone had baked the fake thing and tried to pass them off, that would have been shocking.

But if you already be enough of an idiot to pay $17.50 for a cookie, Does it matter whether you buy it from the official store or from a kind of grey market import? It doesn't matter. You're still getting the same silly overpriced. I think they should keep, I think they should be allowed to keep going. I think it's fine. They should make a trip, you know, three times a week and sell these cookies to idiots who queues.

Who waste their lives. Do you remember when Krispy Cream was only available in Melbourne and people would, I know, it was only in Sydney and people in Melbourne would, you know, fly up for the day and get a whole bunch of boxes from the airport? They open a store at the airport And then everyone will just fly back again No one's missing out Hall of things

Now now people go to the airport With a huge thing of lune croissants If you're at Melbourne airport You'll see somebody with a big bag of those things It reminds me of You know when Carl's Jr. opened its first store in Australia And I love Carl's

I say this, I love Carl's Jr. I really love it Fantastic, but it's so delicious I was very excited right They opened the first store in Australia It was on the central coast of New South Wales. That's bold. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I suppose they wanted to sort of test it, you know, in a kind of maybe out of a big, not in a big city or something. Maybe that was the thing in. I think Carl Jr. was an ice addict. That's what the problem was. It could have been. Well, I was there when it opened. I was an eyewitness.

No way. You went there for the opening, goodness. Well, I didn't go. I didn't. To be fair, I've never had Carl's Jr., so I don't know if it's worth it. Oh, oh, you. Well, rush before, I'll tell you, Dommy, you'll have to rush when you can. Because they open on the Central Coast.

And the reason I didn't go was there was an idiot's queue, right, on the first day. But the queue was not made of humans on foot. It was made of, because it was the Central Coast. The queue was made of cars. Oh, no. And it was queuing down the freeway for kilometres and kilometers and kilometers. It was one of the biggest traffic jams that Central Coast has ever seen. It was as though someone had opened like some sort of.

of brand new thong shop. It would have been like that on the Central Coat, like just as exciting, just as exciting, right? I've just thought of a horrible joke. This is for Loughlin. Producer Locklands from the Central Coast. So was it a bigger queue than on, you know, Centrelink Dolday? Well, this is the thing, Domi, you know. I mean, of course there was a big cue because it was the Central Coast.

So effectively, the burgers were all going to be free of charge because I assume every customer was going to do a runner. You know, they were all going to, they're all planning, I assuming, I'm just getting the burger and pissing off. as quickly as they could. Central Coast is so beautiful. Why am I hanging shit in one of the nicest places in Australia?

Anyway, yeah. But I'm looking at the website now. These things look amazing. Oh, they're absolutely delightful, right? But, but this is the fickleness and the stupidity of what happens, of course, with the types of people who queue and getting, and me too.

I'm stupid getting this excited about Carl's Junior because if you look for Carl's Junior locations in Melbourne, you will see, on Google, a very long list of Carl's juniors that are permanently closed. So, Carl's Jr. Docklands, permanently closed. Carl's Jr. Altona North, permanently closed. Braibrook permanently closed. You know all of these, don't you? Permanently closed. Lindhurst, temporarily closed. I wonder what's going on in Lindhurst. Clayton, temporarily closed. I mean, this is worrying, right? I mean, this is what happens. Everyone lost. interest and it's the same

it's going to be the same of the crumbles I reckon these people are going to fly to Hawaii another 12 times and they'll find they're permanently or maybe temporarily closed. I'm looking at the Carl's Juniors in Sydney and it is true that there's one in

Nauros, one in Wollongong, Newcastle one in Batto Bay which is a long way and the only one actually in Sydney is in Brindelli so none of the many women are I'm not going to have Carl's Tuner. Look look make a bee line to brind jelly tomorrow before that Carl's Jr closes and you will thank me you will thank

me because they are fantastic burgers even though they're on the edge of extinction they're like the koalas really you know in Australia we can't keep anything from going extinct including Carl's Carl's Jr so we used to do this with in an out burger because in an out burger every few years would come in and just do a pop up and a legitimate one and you'd hear Owen Darlinghurst for the next you know four hours there's in an out burgers and now I like it an out burgers but I don't like them enough to queue up for two hours. I've had them, you know, maybe three or four times in America. They're good burgers. They don't look as good as Carl's Jr., but they're very fine burgers. But the whole point of a burger is that it's fast food. It's not worth ever queuing for a burger.

And then you go, well, okay, this clearly demand for in and out. Why don't they ever release in and out burgers in Australia? Apparently they're just doing it to keep the copyright or something like that. But anyway, there's to keep it ticking over. Well, that's the theory anyway. But the point is there's a good upshot of this story, which is that Crumbull cookies have announced they're going to open down under. And I just feel sorry. Oh, they actually are. They say that they are.

They say, look, there's such demand. What are the Hawaii entrepreneurs going to do then? I think at the very least, they should be given the franchise. And so it says here, the team at Crumbull's been amazed by the supportive fans in Australia over recent weeks. As a result, Crumbull's been inspired to accelerate plans to provide to provide all dessert loving Aussies with a true Crumbull experience. They've got an Australian Instagram account.

And this is a very exciting day for Australian cookie fans, except for the legends who are responsible. The entrepreneurs who went and got the ones from Hawaii. They need to be recognised, first of all, with an order of Australia medal, those people. And secondly, by being immediately appointed the Australian CEOs of the official Crumble Cookies. Because you know what, Dommy?

I reckon when Crumbull Cookies opens in Australia, it's going to be just as successful as Carl. Junior. That's right. So finally there's been a huge backlash, as I said. People are very cross. And they're now, look, there's a post here. They've tried to justify themselves. I said, this event was never about profit. We aimed to bring the cookies to crumble. Fans. We didn't want to make money. Our rough cost are as follows. 4,000 on flights and luggage, 6,000 on the cookies in packaging, 2,000 in duties, taxes and customs brokering,

over $1,000 in staffing, additional costs for microwaves, tables, venues and marketing with all these expenses. Are you supposed to do that? Yeah, we set the prices. No, you're definitely not. We set the prices without an intention of making huge profit. The one thing actually on, if I can correct you, Andrew, these people should not be in charge of any business.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if these were the Australian franchisees of Carl's Jr. Well, I did think that the Carl's Jr. burgers that I've had here in Australia did taste a bit microwaved compared to the American. and originals. I think I know what the problem is, you know, with Carl's junior in Australia. It's brand damage. You know, you can't come into a market

if there's already a brand. Like, you know how Burger King couldn't have it in Australia and they had to call it Hungry Jacks because there was a trademark. When we think of Carl, we think of Carl Stefanovic. There's no way a burger

can compete with the frustration and the misery. I mean, people would think that these burgers got you drunk. Of course. They would. They'd be, yes. And people would think that you had to

you know, wake up at 5.30 a.m. to experience the Karl Berger because that's when he's on TV. That's right. Maybe that's why. It could be. And also Carl famously wore the same suit for a whole year in probably the only good thing he's ever done, you know, exposing the kind of double standard of looking at women's clothes on breakfast television. No one noticed he had the same suit on for a year. But I don't associate that with a tasty, fresh burger. I think it was stale sweat when I think of Carl. Well, there you and I are different. I immediately. immediately thought of a tasty fresh burger when I thought of Carl Stefanovic in his suit.

That's his approach to marriage, actually. Tasty fresh burger. Switch it up. Well, look, it's been a lot of reference to dissect Carl Stefanovic's burger chain with you here, Domney. Yeah, look, I think it's time to go about our days. And the clear answer here is that if you create a viral sensation, a TikTok, you know, iconic moment that everyone's interested in,

you'll just lose that in the end. There's no way to win this new. social media age of ours. You'll lose that in the end. And you'll end up in a grave that somebody else is cleaning for likes. We're part of the iconic class network. Thank you, Andrew. We'll catch you next time.

Thank you, dummy.