by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
http://www.naturalnews.com/035312_New_Chapter_Proctor_and_Gamble_Monsanto.html
(NaturalNews) Procter & Gamble, the global corporate conglomerate that sells a vast array of consumer products containing cancer-causing chemicals and petroleum derivatives, is now the proud owner of New Chapter, one of the more promising nutritional supplement companies we’ve seen in a while. New Chapter co-founder Paul Schulick announced, “For us, this has been a dream come true. This is what we have been wanting to do since we started doing this 30 years ago. The world and the United States need this.” (http://www.reformer.com/ci_20194274/p-g-buys-new-chapter?source=most_…)
Really? The world needs global corporate giants to buy up all the natural product brands? Or maybe Paul Schulick just wanted to cash in on all the positive publicity organizations like NaturalNews have selflessly lent him over the years. This is one of the many companies we helped publicize and promote, only to see them sell out to corporate giants who routinely take over these companies, cheapen their product formulations, and exploit name recognition to intentionally mislead consumers into buying watered-down, reformulated products.
So now the same company that brings you Tide laundry detergent, Pringles potato chips, Dawn dishwashing soap, and Bounce dryer sheets (can you even think of a more offensive chemical laundry product?) will be bringing you New Chapter supplements, too.
P&G is the very first corporation to bring you canola oil under the brand name “Puritan.” This was later merged into the Crisco brand of oils, which are all high omega-6 vegetable oils that, for decades, have been touted as being “healthy” even though now we know diets high in omega-6 oils promote cardiovascular inflammation.
It’s also the company that sells Prilosec over-the-counter heartburn medicine, meaning P&G is also in the pharmaceutical business. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Procter_%26_Gamble_brands)
Oh, and guess who owns P&G? One of the top shareholders has been none other than Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), who reportedly owns $4.8 billion in P&G stock (http://seekingalpha.com/article/294569-10-value-stock-picks-of-warren…).
So the next time you think about buying New Chapter supplements, think about your money going into Warren Buffett’s pocket.
The question now is: Will anybody buy New Chapter supplements now that they know Procter & Gamble and Warren Buffet are the corporate operators who own the company?
I sure won’t.
Monsanto and P&G = same institutional owners
Take a look at this: P&G’s top shareholder is Vanguard, a mutual fund. It’s second top shareholder is State Street Corporation. You can see this here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=PG+Major+Holders
Now take a look at the top owners of Monsanto:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=MON+Major+Holders
You got it, they’re exactly the same! Vanguard and State Street.
P&G is also owned in large part by bailout banksters such as JP Morgan and Bank of America — the very banks who received trillions of dollars in bailout funds that will eventually have to be covered by American taxpayers.
Here’s another important connection between P&G and Monsanto: Procter & Gamble’s CFO, Jon Moeller, is none other than the very same Jon Moeller who is also on the Board of Directors of Monsanto. In addition, he’s on the Business Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. (http://www.naturalnews.com/files/pg_executive_bio_moeller.pdf) Original source: http://www.pg.com/en_US/downloads/company/executive_team/bios/pg_exec…
You can see here that he has traded in both P&G and Monsanto stock on a regular basis: http://biz.yahoo.com/t/56/7955.html
This page lists him as a “Director” with Monsanto, and an “Officer” with P&G.
Are you starting to connect the dots here? P&G is part of the global corporate elite. Look at its board members, shareholders and financial ties. This is a corporation that’s 100% tied in with the global elite, and now New Chapter has handed over its once-good name, brand and products to this global corporation steeped in chemical products and mass consumerism. This is the kind of company that New Chapter founder Paul Schulick has now chosen to associated with at the deepest levels of company operations and ownership.
Just another sellout?
I’m disappointed in New Chapter and Paul Schulick. Here’s yet another case of someone who has sold out to the global power elite, apparently oblivious to where this will likely lead. P&G is essentially the Monsanto of the personal care products industry. It manufactures and markets a seemingly endless array of what most NaturalNews readers would call “junk products” made with chemical fillers, petroleum derivatives, artificial fragrances and known carcinogens. It owns the Gillette brand, Duracell, Crest toothpaste (with fluoride, of course), Iams dog foods (GMO corn, anyone?), Pantene hair care products and a long list of others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Procter_%26_Gamble_brands).
In the natural products industry, someone who announces they work for Procter & Gamble might as well announce they work for Satan himself. And now Paul Schulick has made a deal with that devil, it seems.
Of course, I’m sure Paul has justified it all to himself. The huge financial backing of P&G will allow New Chapter to “expand into more retail outlets,” he’s probably told himself. The deal will show P&G that natural products can be profitable! It will make nutrition mainstream! Yeah, right.
Such delusions are, of course, par for the course in this industry where the rule of thumb is that global corporate giants usually buy health products companies for the sole purpose of running them into the ground. It’s not about making nutrition a success story for P&G, it’s about destroying a company that actually had a shot at growing into a billion-dollar firm.
The global corporate takeover of natural products companies
I happen to know that right now, across the natural products industry, small companies are being gobbled up by the likes of Monsanto, P&G, J&J and other giants. Sometimes it’s done out in the open like with New Chapter; other times it’s done secretly, behind closed doors, where men in suits plot to take over a company that was once a trusted brand name founded by someone who really cared about nutrition (Sunfood).
I know hundreds of founders of nutrition companies, and I’ve been informed about dozens of acquisitions and investment actions. I have never seen a success story of a nutrition company purchased by a large “global elite” corporation. These stories always have the same ending: The products get watered down, consumers shift their demand to a smaller, trusted company, and the financials of the once-great small company collapse. The big corporation ends up either shuttering it or whoring it out using the same brand name but replacing all the quality ingredients with crap filler and toxic chemicals. The only “winner” in these deals is usually the CEO who sold it, and possibly a few board members who also walk away with millions of dollars while their customers who made them great get left with nothing.
I’m actually getting sick of watching this pattern unfold, because time and time again I’ve seen companies that NaturalNews helped make famous end up selling out to corporate giants. Remember Larabar? That founder sold out to General Mills. Remember Burt’s Bees? Sold out to Clorox.
I know there are some good companies out there with their hearts in the right place. Boku Superfood is an honest shop, and I know that folks like Nutiva (John Roulac) and Ruth’s Hemp Foods will never sell out to corporate interests. Nor will Dr. Bronner’s. There are superstars in this industry who live by principle and who aren’t driven by profit alone, but those people are extremely rare.
Sadly, far too many people in the health products industry are just like people in the pharmaceutical industry: They’re greedy, selfish and ready to sell out once a sufficiently large financial offer comes along. It’s sad but true.
Warning to NN readers: Watch out for products and companies that change hands
NaturalNews has helped make millionaires in the industry. We promoted honest brands that later sold out to big corporations who changed their formulas and ingredients. In numerous cases, we would have to go back and modify old articles to take down our recommendations or warn consumers about the changes.
See, NaturalNews is one of the largest health news organizations on the planet, reaching literally millions of readers a month. Our publicizing of companies can, on record, turn them into an overnight success. What people do with that success, however, is a question of personal integrity, and as I said above, integrity is severely lacking in every quarter of society. As the editor of NaturalNews, I have become increasingly skeptical about everything — every company, every product, every CEO — because I know that many people are actively trying to get NaturalNews publicity so they can grow faster and sell out more quickly. And I refuse to knowingly be part of that.
Read product labels, folks! Even on products I might have recommended in the past. Companies change hands. Products change their formulations. For example, I used to recommend a vitamin company called Vitacost. Now they’re a totally different company under different ownership and different formulations.
Companies change hands. Brands change. Ethics are sometimes compromised in the name of profits. I’ve seen it countless times.
Trustworthy companies you need to know about
What I do recommend is companies whose founders and CEOs I believe to be honest, high-integrity people. There are real gems out there — the few honest ones who simply won’t bend no matter what the buyout offer. People like Greg Kunin at Ola Loa (www.DrinkYourVitamins.com). Here’s a real treasure of a person. His product has been knocked off by countless cheap imitators, some of which are far more financially successful because they replace his company’s high-end ingredients with their cheap crap ingredients.
When I think about integrity, I think about David Bronner from Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. Or Ruth from Ruth’s Hemp Foods (www.RuthsHempFoods.com). John Roulac from Nutiva (www.Nutiva.com). These are people who fight for what they believe in, which is honest food, honest products and real organics. Ronnie Cummins. Jeffrey Smith. High-integrity people who walk their talk and don’t sell out.
I hope you count me, the Health Ranger, as one of them. I’m not selling out, and in fact, I’m totally disgusted by those who do. As of right now, I’m urging all NaturalNews customers to boycott New Chapter products and stop buying them, period. I would no sooner support Procter & Gamble than I would go out and buy GMO corn seeds from Monsanto. It is against my principles to hand over money to a corporation steeped in chemical products and a history of mindless consumerism.
I don’t buy Monsanto products. Nor Coca-Cola, Nike, PepsiCo or Dean Foods. I don’t buy Procter & Gamble, or Johnson & Johnson for that matter. And I don’t buy the line that somehow P&G owning New Chapter is magically going to transform P&G into a healthy products company. Bull! I predict New Chapter will shortly become another sad casualty of the insatiable corporate eating machine that crushes real health solutions as a way to promote the far more profitable business of endless disease.
For New Chapter, this was the last straw. Because, remember this: Every dollar you now spend on New Chapter is a dollar that supports Procter & Gamble, Warren Buffett and the same institutional investors who own Monsanto.
Spread the word: New Chapter is now owned by Procter & Gamble.