If you ever get the chance to rent the movie Dr. Bronners Magic Soapbox, its quirky and funny and interesting. Long story short, Dr. Bronner, a soapmaker from many generations of soapmakers, fled Nazi Germany and found work in the US. At some point he started going on this campaign to unite all religions as one, and to push his message he sold and gave away soap that he had made, with a very densely lettered label encapsulating his somewhat crackpot philosophy. He made soap, but his main interest was talking, ranting really, to anyone who would listen. He essentially abandoned his children to foster homes, deciding he couldnt save the world and raise kids at the same time. ;) Apparently at a university he started ranting rather passionately at the college dean, who called the police, who didnt know what to do with him so they threw him in a looney bin and there gave him shock treatments. He escaped and went to California with $40 in his pocket and there started Dr. Bronners soap company, still with the crank messianic messages on the label. He also send multiple letters to the President and the FBI about fluoridation and communism. ;) Fast forward a bit, and now Dr. Bronners (run by his children and grandchildren) is the poster boy for socially responsible companies. The salaries for the highest paid person in the company is pegged at like 14 times the wages of the lowest, David Bronner has actually sued other personal care companies for false claims of organic and fair trade ingredients, and they were the first company to use a 100% post-consumer plastic bottle for their products. They almost run it like a non-profit, giving away huge amounts of their profit to charitable causes (according to the movie, 70%). They have a very low-tech operation, filling and labeling bottles by hand, and using a gravity feed system to move liquid soap to their bottling line. And they still have crazy Dr. Bronners rants on all the bottles, at least for the product lines that he created labels for. ;) Ralph Bronner, Dr. Bronners eldest son, is a focus of the movie and still goes around preaching something like Dr. Bronners gospel and doing charitable works. youtu.be/YQumvXzLOvg
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 06:16:48 +0000
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