A recent purchase in the product world has created quite the buzz. Last week The Clorox Company announced that they have bought the beloved Burt’s Bees for $925 million in cash.

Burt’s Bees, which began in 1984 as cofounder Burt Shavitz peddling honey out the back of his pick-up, has an ever-growing following for it natural products over the past years. Now in a situation similar to Colgate’s purchasing of Tom’s of Maine, or Ben & Jerry’s buyout to Unilever, brand-loyal consumers have been sent into a tailspin.

According to Clorox, the natural personal care market already accounts for over $6 billion in sales each year, and sales are climbing at an annual rate of 9%. The purchase of the natural products company is intended to prep Clorox for the release of Green Works, their new environmentally friendly cleaning line.
“The Burt’s Bees brand is well-anchored in sustainability and health and wellness, and we believe it will benefit from natural and ‘green’ tailwinds,” said Clorox Chief Executive Donald R. Knauss. “It’s in an economically attractive category with a margin structure that will be highly accretive to Clorox.”
Plans are in place for Burt’s to conduct a distribution test with Wal-Mart Stores by the end of the year. Clorox, coincidentally, obtains 26% of its sales from Wal-Mart.
The purchased Google search results link to www.burtsbees.com currently opens up to the “Our Values” page, featuring “The Greater Good Business Model,” instead of the usual homepage. Among other hypocritical highlights, the site includes “animals rights” and “fair trade” in it’s web of consciousness; a compelling contrast to Clorox’s animal testing practices and Burt’s branching out to Wal-Mart.
The site also features a response to the recent purchase via “A Letter to Our Loyal Customers,” which states that Burt’s still plans to stick to their ‘green’ guns, and that the purchase is “a great opportunity to help us better deliver against our mission of making truly natural personal products available to everyone, everywhere.” The company may now be able to make the most of their mission, but what about those values?
On the brighter side, the Burt’s business will not be joining The Clorox Company headquarters in Oakland, CA, but remain nestled in North Carolina. Perhaps the cross country distance between the bleach and the beeswax will be enough to convince consumers.

2 Comments »