So, I’ve been using Wal-Mart’s Everyday Clean shampoo for years now. It’s sold under their Equate brand, which according to Wikipedia is a private label store brand of Wal-Mart’s, and which they’ve owned since 1993. They recently changed the color and texture of the shampoo, so I was looking at the label to see if it said anything (even New! Improved!) about it. (Nope.)
But I did notice for the first time that on the bottom of the back side of the bottle were the words “WOMEN OWNED”.
So I’m going, excuse the fuck out of me?! How can this brand be “woman owned” unless Wal-Mart itself is? And while I’m sure there are women amongst the heirs of Sam Walton that have an ownership interest in Wal-Mart, it seems unlikely that there aren’t a number of men amongst those heirs as well.
OTOH, I can’t believe they’d claim this brand is “women owned” unless it were a legally defensible claim.
So what’s the straight dope here? How exactly is it legal for them to claim that this product is “women owned”, or is it just plain wrong?
Is the brand definitely officially owned by Wal-Mart? Or is it, say, owned by a few of the Waltons (who happen to be women), and under an exclusivity contract with Wal-Mart?
My guess, having worked in the personal-care products industry, is that Wal-Mart itself is not the manufacturer of those products, and nor do they own the manufacturers.
It’s likely that there are dozens (hundreds?) of independent companies who are “co-packing” various Equate products, under contract with Wal-Mart: while Wal-Mart owns the Equate brand name and trade dress, they contract with companies which specialize in manufacturing those various products (shampoos, OTC medications, etc.) to produce them. It would appear that the company which makes that particular shampoo, under contract with Wal-Mart, is, in fact, owned by women.
Heck, they might even be one of several different companies that make the exact same shampoo for Wal*Mart. Sch that some bottles from supplier “A” say women-owned and other seemingly identical bottles from supplier “B” don’t. Not hugely likely, but not impossible either.
Wal*Mart likes simple supply chains where possible, but they also do a truly vast volume of even minor products. Such that they can’t always single-source them just for volume reasons.
Or there might be dozens of different manufacturers that make Equate-labeled products, and the one who makes that particular shampoo happens to be women-owned, while the one who makes, e.g., dandruff shampoo, isn’t.
What does the full verbiage on that back of that shampoo bottle say, beyond “Woman Owned”? “Manufactured by a woman-owned company?” Something else?
I can pretty much guarantee you that Wal-Mart has very, very good lawyers, who vet these things, and even if ISTY that that statement should be reflective of the “name on the bottle,” I would imagine that their lawyers feel otherwise.
Unless that’s on every Equate and other Wal-Mart “store brand” product (which I highly doubt), it’d still suggest that it’s referring to that particular product, manufactured and co-packed by a women-owned company. But, yeah, that labeling could definitely be clearer.
Since we first stepped into the world of manufacturing almost 40 years ago, we have earned our reputation of providing superior personal care products with high grade value and attention to detail. Today, we’ve notably heightened our capabilities to become America’s largest woman-owned company for liquid personal care contract manufacturing. We’re proud to be WBENC Certified.
So the label says “WOMEN OWNED” but one has to go out on the Web to find out what entity that phrase refers back to. (As the pic of the label shows, all it says about manufacture is that it’s a product of Canada, and it’s not a Proctor & Gamble product.)
How bizarre. Not exactly truth in labeling, if you ask me, but there’s damned sure nobody to complain to about it anymore.
ETA:
Can’t argue with them on that - I’ve been using their shampoo for more than a few years now, and am quite satisfied with the quality.
The label shows that “WOMEN OWNED” on that bottle is more than just words; it’s a trademarked logo. Googling shows me that it’s trademarked by the WBENC (Women’s Business Enterprise National Council), which certifies companies as:
So, we’ve gotten to the bottom of it, but I agree – unless you actually know that those products aren’t directly made by Wal-Mart themselves, it leads to confusion.
Maybe the knowledge isn’t evenly distributed, but I would assume by default that no store brands are manufactured by the store. Every one of them (Equate, Kirkland, whatever) is outsourced to one of hundreds of possible manufacturers. I suppose it’s possible that a small number are actually directly manufactured but it would have to be a distinct minority.
I assume the same, but then, I worked in the packaged-goods industry for years. I would suspect that many, if not most, people, if they even are aware that Equate is Wal-Mart’s store label, have no idea whether or not Wal-Mart, themselves, make those products.
Oh sure, but if the label is going to include a claim about the manufacturer, it ought to make it clear that (a) the claim is about the manufacturer, and (b) who that manufacturer is. That shouldn’t be asking too much.
Yeah, I agree we’ve gotten to the bottom of it. The factual question that I came in with has been answered.
The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act only says that the label must contain “the name and place of business of the manufacturer, packer, or distributor”. This is an exclusive “or”. The label does say it was distributed by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Therefore it isn’t required to list the manufacturer.
Logic and consumer protective regulations have only a little overlap. Like tax law, there’s an element of underlying logic, then all the vested interests get to push and pull to massage the result into what we recognize: an incoherent mass of mostly arbitrary details.
I don’t know about that - I’ve never worked in the packaged foods industry , but I’ve been reading for at least 30 years that store brand products are often actually manufactured by a name brand company - for example, Target’s Good and Gather Honey Nut Hoops is probably made by the same factories that make Cheerios or Malt-o-Meal Honey Nuts. I didn’t know that Equate was a Walmart store brand - but my assumption would be that the store does not manufacture any of the store branded products. I’m sure a lot of people don’t give it any thought but I can’t imagine anyone actually thinks Walmart or Kroger or CVS manufactures all their store-brand products.