Originally published July 31 2007
Natural soap berry laundry detergent co-op buying opportunity announced at NaturalNews.com
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
This is a rare opportunity to take part in a cooperative product acquisition effort organized by NaturalNews.com and designed to help consumers eliminate the toxic chemicals found in manufactured laundry detergent products. A few months ago, we announced a product called Maggie's Soap Nuts -- a natural soap and laundry detergent made from the dried shells of berries that grow on the soap berry tree. The reader response was tremendous, and over a thousand people have tried the product and liked it!
We received a lot of feedback about the soap berries. Readers were thrilled to find a natural soap product that worked so well and yet contained no synthetic chemicals or toxic fragrance additives. But we also received complaints about the price of the product. It was just too expensive, people told us, and they wanted something that was more competitive with the popular laundry detergents sold in stores. They were also concerned about the large amount of packaging used with the soap nuts, and they wanted something more eco-friendly that doesn't use such expensive packaging with color printing.
Our cooperative acquisition of soap berries
Here at NaturalNews, our primary mission is to serve the interests of you, our readers. In response to all the email and phone calls about these soap berries, we've decided to consider putting together a co-op soap berry buying arrangement where we pool the product demand of our readers and approach the various soap berry producers around the world to find the best price (and quality) for a bulk purchase. By doing this, we'll be able to acquire soap berries at a significantly reduced price while using more eco-friendly packaging.
To participate in this NaturalNews reader co-op arrangement, simply click here to send us an email and tell us the following information:
1) How many KILOs of soap berries would you be interested in purchasing? (Can be approximate. One kilo equals 2.2 pounds and can clean from 100 - 150 loads of laundry.) This is not actually a reservation; it's just an email survey of how many kilos of soap berries our readers might want.
2) Your first and last name.
3) The city, state and country in which you live.
The estimated price to you (see below) will be around $30 per kilo, which is less than half the current retail price of similar products. The final price may actually be lower, but we won't know until we approach the producers and calculate the total costs.
You do not have to actually commit to buying what you want to reserve, nor do you have to place an order right now. We're just trying to gauge the approximate demand for bulk-packaged soap berries. Remember, too, that soap berries can be used to clean laundry, hair, skin, countertops, children's play areas and much more. I'm going to be using this to make pet shampoo, body wash, garage cleaner and a natural veggie wash. The saponins are extremely versatile. Anywhere that you need soap, you can use soap berries (even on carpet!).
We will then take this aggregate product demand and approach Maggie's Soap Nuts and other companies to get the best price possible on the total demand (which might be 2,000 kilos of soap berries, for example). Once we acquire the best price, we will front the money to buy this shipment of soap berries and have it brought to our fulfillment center near Phoenix, Arizona (or, shipped to other continents depending on demand, see below...). From there, we will offer the product through www.BetterLifeGoods.com at the best price we can manage. (We will need to have some markup in order to cover the up-front cash requirements, shipping, customs clearance, fulfillment costs, storage costs and other logistics overhead, but the bottom line savings to everyone will be tremendous.)
The bottom line? Together, we can acquire large quantities of soap berries at an unprecedented price by pooling our demand and using this to negotiate the best deal possible with soap berry providers.
How to get in on this co-op purchase
Click here to email us now and tell us how many kilos of soap berries you want to reserve. We estimate the final price might be around $30 per kilo (plus shipping), but do not hold us to that because we don't know the final cost until we approach the soap berry companies with our aggregate demand numbers. There may also be seasonal issues (soap berries are only harvested during certain times of the year) that affect the final price and availability.
Please note that $30 per kilo is less than half the price of the soap berry product we are currently offering (which is priced at $19 for 10 ounces, and that comes out to over $65 per kilo).
One kilogram of soap berries can clean from 100 - 150 loads of laundry. If we take the middle ground on this and assume it can clean 125 loads of laundry, the cost comes to 24 cents per load of laundry. That's actually LESS than many of the name-brand chemical laundry detergents. So this is a price point that should make sense to everyone: Not only do you pay no more for this natural detergent, but you also save the environment from toxic chemicals, reduce the poisoning of your own family from laundry chemicals and reduce the use of wasteful packaging.
Each kilo of soap berries will be packaged in a separate cloth bag which may or may not be wrapped in a plastic bag (we haven't decided yet whether humidity control is necessary for these soap berries). Each kilo will also include a small cloth bag to use as a holding container for the soap nuts (you toss the small bag into the laundry).
Personally, I'm reserving a couple hundred pounds myself, because I've been washing laundry with these soap berries for months now, and I'm never switching back to chemical laundry detergent! I'm also buying extra to give away as Christmas gifts this year. Everybody gets soap berries! (My Christmas shopping will be completely done when this shipment arrives!)
Why the Bodhi tree matters
Buying and using soap berries isn't merely about cleaning your own laundry; it's about cleansing the whole world. Soap berries come from a species closely related to the Bodhi Tree, which many of you may recall as being the tree under which Buddha sat while meditating for peace. The Bodhi Tree is a "sacred fig" and has a fascinating history you can read at Wikipedia.
When you purchase and use soap berries, you encourage the growing of these sacred trees while also providing honest, close-to-the-earth work for farmers and families in the countries where these soap berries are produced: India, Indonesia, Taiwan and other SE Asian nations.
Soap berries are grown without pesticides. All soap berries are naturally organic. (Because bugs don't like to eat soap.) Their cultivation is earth-friendly and sustainable, which is in great contrast to the chemical production of laundry detergent which pollutes our waters, soils and bodies. Soap berry saponins can even be used to cleanse the soil and help rid it of toxic substances.
You can even make a natural garden pesticide out of soap berries, and use it to protect your plants from pests without poisoning your food or soil. It's truly an astounding solution for earth-friendly cleanliness, and it's provided by Mother Nature. Using soap berries in your laundry, kitchen, shower and home helps support this industry that, until recently, had virtually disappeared thanks to the popularity of chemical-based cleaning products that now dominate Western society (which is increasingly poisoned and dying from cancer and Alzheimer's disease -- no coincidence). But now, the soap berry industry is surging back, and you can be part of this rebirth of an industry that the planet desperately needs if we are to survive as a civilization.
As I said, it's about much more than cleaning your laundry. It's about survival. We either stop poisoning our homes and environment, or we will perish. And while soap berries alone can't save the planet, they are absolutely part of the solution.
This arrangement only happens once a year
If you're interested in participating in this special NaturalNews co-op purchase of soap berries, reserve enough soap berries for a one-year supply because we will probably only do this kind of co-op aggregate purchasing deal once a year. If you want to reserve a very large quantity such as 100 or 200 kilos, please let us know so that we can make sure you are at the top of the fulfillment list when the product arrives. Some institutional customers (such as hotels or B&Bs) could "go green" by switching to this natural laundry detergent and eliminating their reliance on chemical products.
And by the way, if you want to buy these from us at the co-op prices and then resell them at retail price to local businesses or customers, that's fine with us. The more people use soap berries, the better it is for the planet. My main goal here is spreading knowledge about this product and getting more consumers switched over so they stop using toxic laundry detergent products filled with synthetic chemicals and fragrance.
Soap berry co-op summary
• Email us at [email protected] to tell us how many kilos of soap berries you want to reserve. (No obligation. It's just an estimate.) Please include:
1) How many KILOs of soap berries would you be interested in purchasing.
2) Your first and last name.
3) The city, state and country in which you live.
The reason we want to know your country is that if there's enough demand in Australia, for example, we may arrange for a separate shipment to Australia that can be distributed locally at very low cost. Also, if you are interested in being a local distributor for this product outside North America, please indicate that in your email. (If we arrange for a shipment directly to Australia, for example, we will need someone there to handle storage and fulfillment.)
After we receive email responses to this, we will:
• Determine whether there's enough combined interested to justify a bulk purchase.
• We will combine the demand estimates and seek out the best price on bulk soap berries.
• We'll buy the soap berries up front and import them, then make them available for fulfillment from the U.S. (or other countries, too, depending on demand).
• We'll pass the cost savings through to NaturalNews readers, and we'll all get the best pricing possible on this environmentally-friendly natural cleaning product. (We estimate the final cost to consumers will be $30 per kilo, which is less than half the current retail pricing on such products.) The actual final cost may vary from this, however. We won't know until we do the deal.
• It may take us approximately 4 - 8 weeks to acquire the product and be ready to fulfill orders. (That's mostly for international shipping time.) It may be faster if we can find a source in North America, however.
• This is something we will only offer to readers once a year, so if you're interested in participating, be sure to reserve enough supply for one year.
• If you want to reserve very large quantities such as 200 kilos, this is your chance to acquire it very affordably. Please contact us to make arrangements to join this co-op arrangement. We'll be sure your 200 kilos make it on the boat! (A deposit will be required to reserve very large quantities to make sure you're serious about it.)
Together, we have significant purchasing power, and it's time we used that to get the best deal possible on an important, eco-friendly product for green living. Join us in this cooperative acquisition of soap berries and we'll all share the benefits!
NOTE: Your email to us is not a legally-binding reservation of soap berries. If you actually want to reserve a large amount up front and guarantee availability, you'll need to call us and arrange for a down payment. (Call 520-232-9300.) What we're trying to do here is get an estimate of the total reader demand for this product so we can order enough to go around. But because this is all just an estimate, we could end up with too much or too little product. We'll keep you posted on the outcome of this co-op purchasing action and let you know what steps we're taking to acquire the product.
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