Feedback on The Ecological Food Society

I joined the Ecological Food Society after reading their ad in The New York Times. At the time, they were offering a free pint of Shaklee's Basic-H and as a Shaklee distributor, I was pleased to see them handling our products.

Three or four months after I sent my check. I received my first option list, a letter of apology and a four-ounce plastic bottle of Earth-1. The attached note said that since Shaklee was unwilling to reveal the ingredients in Basic-H, EFS had severed connections with the company. However, I noticed that the bottle of Earth-1 didn't list ingredients or even give the manufacturer's name, and the option list contained pictures of Shaklee products with the name scratched out.

During the time of my association with EFS, I never received any information about organic growers in my area, and their DDT-less apple was as elusive as their impressive board of advisers.

Minette Rowley
Rumney, N.H.

It would appear to me that Mr. Schiff and Mr. Brown might have engaged in a little Madison Avenue leg pulling when they described how the Ecological Food Society tests its wares for contamination (MOTHER NO. 13). First. of all, a $5,000 gas chromatograph can be considered a toy (especially in the hands of an amateur) when it comes to trace-residue analyses. Second, to test a single apple—and EFS apparently claims to test one out of every bushel—would involve something like $1,000 worth of lab work. (Remember, one must look more closely, than the FDA, which checks—if at all—only for amounts in excess of the allowable residues normally left after pesticide use.) Third, I doubt that there's a qualified chemist in the country who would guarantee, on the basis of testing alone that pesticides absolutely had not been used on a product. .

If you want pure food, I recommend gnawing it . . . there's more to food than the eating of it. If this isn't possible, why not buy it an a one-to-one basis from someone local? It's hard to believe that "front money" and "private investors" are necessary in order to get your hands on a few clean carrots.

Harry Ellery
Vice President. Cory Laboratories, Inc.
Menominee, Mich.

It is a shame that the organic movement is open to exploitation by profit seekers who profess to be working for change. There are many conscientious people wits are genuinely concerned woith solving environmental problems but don't know exactly what to do . . . it's among these folks that the Ecological Food Society saws its oats.

I saw the DDT-less apple ad its PSYCHOLOGY TODAY over a year ago and enthusiastically sent my $5.00 to EFS. For months, all I got were apologies and order forms for the most ridiculous (organic deodorants) and overpackaqed supplies , . . and never have I received an option to buy anything to live on except apples, almond butter and honey (all overpriced). All in all, I've had no indication that the EFS is doing anything positive except making money (like they say in your "Plowboy Interview", they're not non-profit),

Michael F. Zinn
Organic Energy Co-op
Fresh Meadows, Queens, N.Y,

I f you had doubts about whether the Ecological Food Society was "on the level", wouldn't it have been a good idea to join for a while and check it out instead of simply interviewing its organizers? Two of us have been members of EFS since early 1971, and we consider it a classic rip-off.

At the same time that the EFS people were running a heavy ad campaign for new members, they were sending old members profuse apologies for the lousy service, using the huge and unexpected response to their first ad as an excuse, Why didn't they stop advertising until they got caught up?

Their "catalog" comes irregularly maybe three times a year and contains about fifteen items, many of which are useless gadgets, Neither of us has ever received any kind of a newsletter, let alone a 90-page one, although one of us did get a copy of NATURAL LIFE STYLES (first issue) from EFS . . , and if they're claiming that as their newsletter, it's downright dishonest.

One reason we joined EFS was that they promised to provide practical advice on stuff to buy and to avoid in the supermarket . . . they have never sent any of that kind of information.

Ann Howe
Andrea Marciano
Cortland, N.Y.

Got my letter to the Ecological Food Society back today with the envelope stamped "out of business". Is the EFS defunct, moved, or . . .?

Fred Scott
Dresden, Ontario

What follows is an exchange betweendisappointed EFS member Bink Williams aid Steve Brown, president of Schiff/Brown & Co. (the New York ad agency behind EFS).

I read your interview in MOTHER NO. 13 with interest, Mr. Brown, since my wife and I joined the EFS over a year ago in hopes of establishing a supply of organic grains, fruits, etc. We have been disappointed with the selection of things offered for sale—mostly dried fruit, vitamins, candy and nuts (the Christmas apples were a welcome change)—and have found most items to be consistently more expansive than what's available locally.

For example, we have spring water delivered for 31¢ a gallon (not 80¢ to $5.00) , . , and why the oversell on purifiers? Certainty portable water purifiers can be valuable to those trapped in the city, but for your ad to imply that water thus purified is equivalent in nourishment to living spring water is a bit absurd (and your replacement filter costs $3.49, not $1.00).

The one item—an organic cosmetics kit—that I did order from EFS has never come, despite the fact that I sent for it the day after receiving the Christmas option list (promising Christmas delivery), On January 11, 1972 I wrote to EFS requesting either immediate delivery or a refund and expressing our disappointment. We still haven't heard a word.

All in all, your ideas look great on paper, but something is keeping them from becoming manifest. Just growing pains, I hope. See you on the mountain top.

Bink Williams
New Orleans, La.

Thanks for your letter, even if it was only to let us know haw we seem to have messed up in your case, Unfortunately, one of the disadvanages in not running an (IBM-type operation is that you don't get IBM efficiency (if there is such a thing). Anyway, I am personally looking into what happened to your order.

But now to some other questions you raise, which have to be answered if we are not to come off as charlatans (even though you were nice enough not to actually state the only conclusion that logically followed from your letter),

While I'm glad you liked the apples offered for Christmas, I'm sorry you are not a dried fruit-vitamin-nut lover. Our selections are not made an the basis of gustatory appeal alone . . . we have to balance that against what's available that comes up to our standards. Which brings me to our prices.

We have stated in our correspondence with members that our prices might often seem way out of fine . . . and they were high at first. Often, the only things we could certify as being of the quality we said they were cost us an arm and a leg (for a variety of reasons you may or may not be aware of), and then we had to add on our (minimal) 29 to 38% markup.

However, as soon as we had solved the quality problem and had a secure base for a certain item, we set about cutting consumer casts. In some cases, we lowered prices about 40% (without being asked) because our new volume allowed us to twist arms and hold out rewards to those who would manufacture to all our specifications. We even sent back refunds (on Vitamin. C, on Shampoo, on water purifiers) to members who had ordered at the higher price because we had managed to reduce our cost in the interim, What other company in the entire country does nutty things like that?

If you still find our prices higher than those in your locality, well . . . I don't want to make generalized assertions about health food stores, but certainly you are aware that even the honest proprietors have no sure way of knowing that what they sell is any good. The Society, on the other hand, is committed to checking out all products before selling them. Our prices may be high, but we know what we're dealing in and how good it is. Of course, if your local source is one you can depend on, by all means use it . . . our members generally don't have such sources available, and it's for them that the Society is most valuable.

About that water purifier . , . the spring-water-versus-filtered-water controversy is still going on. One ironic fact that you may want to consider is this: city-treated water is, I agree, usually horrible and full of chemicals but those chemicals have killed all harmful organic matter (such as the coliform and other bacteria), which even spring water sometimes contains. If you filter this treated water in your home, you just may wind up with the best of both worlds: bacteria-free as well as chemical-free water.

You're right . . . our replacement filter is $3.49, not $1. 00 as incorrectly stated in the MOTHER article (by the way, there were encouragingly few errors in that article). I also did not—unless I was "somewhere else"—say that bottled water sells for $5.00 a gallon. . . $1.00 a gallon is the highest price I've seen so far.

Hope that this has answered some of your questions. Let's leave it at my telling you that we're doing our best and you, maybe, replying that it isn't good enough. Unhappily, you may be right.

If you get to the mountain top and don't see us there, be patient . . . sit down, sip some cider and wait just a bit.

Steve Brown
Ecological Food Society

Since the "Plowboy Interview" with EPS founders Victor Schiff and Steve Brown appeared in MOTHER NO. 13, a number of readers have insisted that EFS hasn't been living up to its promises. So in mid-March we hopefully sent a letter to Steve summarizing the complaints we'd received and including' copies of several examples, A second less hopeful note went out several weeks later. Still no answer. . . although neither letter was returned. However, when we tried to cold Schiff/Brown , we were told that the phone had been disconnected Then at the eleventh hour, so to speak, the following letter arrived from Steve.

Sorry to take so long in answering you but things are in a gigantic mess not only with the Ecological Food Society but also with our other businesses, which we have drained of money and deprived of attention in order to keep EFS going. But that's our problem. Now to your problem, and that of your readers.

First, EPS is not only broke but about $180,000 in the hole. The doors have been padlocked by the Internal Revenue Service for non-payment of some taxes, and the mail is not being delivered. to us by the post office.

Believe it or not, this does not mean that EFS officially out of business. There have been lots of sweet-talking "nice guys" who wanted to buy EFS and, "out of the goodness of their hearts", continue the "good work" and all that crap. However, we figured if we went broke we might as well do it as honestly as possible, without lending our names whatever they're worth—to something shady.

Finally one group, representing a public company, has put its money, where its mouth is and provided postage to get packages out to members as of March, 17, 1972. They are also authorizing refunds and/or credits: for whatever else is owed. As of this daze (March 30, 1972), it appears that EFS will resume operations (with an outside, hard-nose type in charge of finances, thank heavens) and make good on all its promises and materials as soon as is humanly possible. Those members who want, to stick around and see . . . well, we'll be grateful. Those who are fed up (and not without good reason) can, of course, take their money and run.

By the way, Schiff/Brown Advertising is in the same boat as EFS with offices locked and a deficit of $94,000 owed to it by the Society, so if you think anybody's gotten as ripped-off as we have, you're nuts. Victor and I did not take a penny out of EFS (it's an open corporation and this is a matter of record); on the contrary, we sank every penny we had—privately and otherwise—into an attempt to make it go. In February, we even took our last few hundred bucks in personal savings and bought postage to get out as many back orders and materials as we could. Thousands of packages were all ready to go (partly because we had gone upstate and packed the darned things ourselves after there was no money left to pay the shipping people) but until then we hadn't been able to raise the postage money.

Now, in opposition to what some of your reader complaints say, we did mail out the EFS newsletter . . . 22,000 copies. One was a six-page letter (with photographs) containing such items as our testing procedure with the gas chromatograph (incidentally we did not, as your article reported, say we tested an apple a bushel since this would have cost more than the national debt as one of your readers pointed out) and a lead article on stilbestrol that we feel had some part in prompting subsequent government action.

We also mailed put a 90-page GUIDE TO ORGANIC LIVING which, despite some confusion, we arranged to have prepared for us by the staff of NATURAL LIFE STYLES. We sent out 12,000 of those GUIDES and have had another 11,000 sitting in a mailing house since June, 1971 waiting for postage.

The Shaklee story was as I stated it , . . they would not disclose their ingredients so we manufactured our own "detergent" (Earth-1) and put a full list of ingredients on each bottle. Of course, I say one thing and your readers say another. Whom to believe? Well, if I can get back into my offices, i'll try to send you an Earth-1 label/brochure.

Why did we keep running ads when we were having difficulty servicing the members we already had? Well (strange as it may seem), we didn't really know we were having difficulty. Only toward the end of 1971 (six months after your interview was actually taped) did we start running into snags . . . for example, manufacturers who demanded cash up front instead of giving the usual 30 to 60 days' credit, I guess the beard and sneakers didn't look like good business risks (evidently they weren't?). Also, our underwriter, who was supposed to have delivered $350,000 in bridge financing to EFS in May of 1971 (this would have put it on solid ground) inexplicably broke up with his partner and left us high and dry. When it finally became clear that we couldn't do right by the members we had, we stopped soliciting new ones. But as you know, some ad insertions must be in as long as three months before the date of publication and in that time a lot can—and did—happen.

I don't know if I've answered all your questions, but thanks for asking before busting. Keep up the goad work of "throwin' the rascals out". . . even if they torn out to be me.

Steve Blown
Ecological Food Society