Garden of Life shocked customers worldwide when they announced in 2017 that the company has sold its popular non-GMO, whole food vitamin brand to multi-industry giant Nestle. According to recent reports including this one from Reuters, Nestlè has agreed to purchase Atrium Innovations, the owner of the organic vitamin and supplement company Garden of Life, for the price tag of a cool $2.3 billion. Nestlè is also fond of using synthetic vitamins in its products, leaving some to wonder if Garden of Life may go down that same path at some point as well. Nestle has a pretty sketchy history with its ethics and ingredients. Back in 2013, Nestle Chairman and former CEO Peter Brabeck suggested that water should be given a market value and privatized. That's right, he said that declaring water a human right is “extreme”! Keep in mind that Nestle is the largest producer of bottled water in the world! How ethical is that? Does this sound like the kind of company you can trust to uphold the very ideals that Garden of Life was founded on? Not likely. Nestle is also a predatory company that undermines breastfeeding worldwide. The company has gone into poor, developing countries and promoted their infant formula to poor mothers. This is a noble concept except for one caveat… these mothers have no access to clean water to make the formula for their babies which has resulted in multiple deaths. Also, by the time the free formula samples were gone, the mothers own breast milk had dried up and they were left with no way to feed their babies. Other ethical concerns with Nestle involve child labor and trafficking, pollution, health threates including melamine present in their infant formulas in China, their history with pollution, price fixing, and promoting unhealthy food and mislabeling. And finally, let's not forget that Nestle has donated millions of dollars to oppose GMO labeling. What will happen to Garden of Life products as Nestle takes over? It's hard to say. But one thing is certain- Garden of Life's strongly upheld belief in sourcing only non-GMO, whole foods is probably going out the window. And even if Nestle says they will continue to operate and maintain the same organic standards that were once the hallmark of Garden of Life, will you believe them? Those of us here at March Against Monsanto definitely won't