Patti Labelle should be thanking fan James Wright. Five days after Wright’s hilarious review of the legend’s now famous sweet potato pie, Walmart is reporting that they’ve sold just under $1 million worth of the dessert.
As reported by Mediaoutrage, “Walmart representative John Forrest Ales confirmed to Yahoo Food that the sweet potato pies are selling like hot cakes (er, pies) at locations across the country. “For 72 hours, we were selling one per second,” he told us. Ales wouldn’t go into specifics about sales figures, but at $3.48 a pie, that works out to just under $1 million in sales over the weekend. The pie’s product page is currently the most-visited food site on Walmart.com, Ales said. (For a bit of context, Walmart might sell two pumpkin pies every second in the month of November. But still, $1 million in sweet potato pie sales is a lot of pie.)
Walmart was caught off-guard by the frenzy, Ales said.
“Friday morning, the team was working with the [sweet potato pie] supplier to see how we can keep up with the demand,” Ales said. “The supplier… was having a hard time finding [enough] sweet potatoes. So we walked down the hall to the produce department [and said,] ‘We need about 2 million pounds of California sweet potatoes!’ So that’s what we’ve been working through.”
Ales added that Walmart is working hard to replenish stocks at sold-out locations. “We’re really sorry about that,” he said. “We’re looking at where stores are out and how we can quickly move pies to that area.”
And what did LaBelle have to say about all the frenzy? She spoke with Wright personally after the footage went viral last Thursday, November 12, 2015.
Wright told BET.com, “She kept thanking me and she kept telling me how much she loved me. She kept telling me to be me. She was like ‘Boy, you can sang!’“
And in less than one week, the video has received over 1.6 million views.
If you haven’t already watched the very entertaining video, check it out below.
