I think this is required by law:

Alternative Method of Entry: An eligible entrant may hand-write his/her complete name (no initials), valid e-mail address, street address (P.O. Boxes not accepted), city, state, ZIP code, telephone number, and date of birth (MM/DD/YYYY) on a 3ýâÂÂx5â card (âÂÂMail-In EntryâÂÂ) and mail it with sufficient postage to: Village Harvest Kitchen Sweepstakes, P.O. Box 410, Southfield, MI 48037. All Mail-In Entries must be postmarked no later than November 24, 2014, and received on or before December 1, 2014, in order to be eligible. Mail-In Entries must be legibly hand-written and signed by entrant. Mechanical reproductions, postage-due, Mail-In Entries mailed in an envelope or sent in excess of the entry limits set forth below will not be accepted. Mail-In Entries received without a verifiable and legible return address will be deemed incomplete and not valid entries.

That still doesn't get it over the smarmy line. I think they want to keep their 10K and blame it on ineligible entries.

This is typical for contests. You either make a purchase or submit a specified type of entry without one. In theory, you get no benefit from making the purchase but they usually make it easier to do so.

In some states, like FL where I live, it's illegal for a contest to require a purchase, so they always have the weasly out in the fine print somewhere, since otherwise they'd have publish a big long list of "not valid inâ¦"

writers block, same here in California.