Even cakes with the most "special" of ingredients don't command ten grand at auction: it appears to be tax deductions all around, as a company investigates why one employee chose a 9-year-old's Fair entry to spend $10,000 of company funds.
The $10,000 final bid exceeded the the then-highest auction bidder's six hundred bucks. A company specializing in fertilizer products, Mosaic Company, paid a (seemingly) exorbitant sum for 9-year-old Abigail Putnam's baked goods: a cake that the young girl entered in Florida's Polk County Youth Fair.
The $10,000 winning bid by Mosaic stands as the most ever paid for a cake at the annual fair, says the fair's youth fair coordinator Janice Jackson. The cake-baker's father, Adam Putnam, also serves as agriculture commissioner and says even Abigail is aware that a cake isn't worth $10,000. Mr. Putnam didn't reference his own understanding on that fact but, somehow, the younger Putnam ended up donating $9,000 of the bid back to the fair.
Fair officials told local media outlet, "The Ledger of Lakeland," that the Mosaic fertilizer company typically buys many things from the students who sell livestock and baked goods as entries for the annual Florida fair event. Mosaic itself states: "Supporting communities is more than a tradition at Mosaic--it is ingrained in our culture. While our products nourish crops and livestock, we are committed to nourishing the communities in which we live and work through our community investment programs." The fertilizer specialist seems to have lived up to its words, though the event still seems a bit baffling.
The fertilizer company's spokesman Russell Schweiss says an employee had been given a lump sum to buy items at the fair. Apparently the company plans to investigate a bit further -- into the pricey cake purchase. Schweiss says, "The $10,000 is definitely outside of the normal range." But, then again, a tax deduction is a tax deduction.