In this podcast episode, EWG President and co-Founder Ken Cook talks with Lisa Bronner, part of the family behind Dr. Bronner’s soap. She’s Dr. Bronner’s consumer educator and a longtime advocate for clean personal care products and regenerative, organic farming. She is also the author of “Soap and Soul: A Practical Guide to Minding Your Home, Your Body, and Your Spirit with Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps.”
Bronner recounts the history of her family and her grandfather’s founding of the company, in 1948. She talks about her new book and her approach helping everyone gain a better understanding of how to make healthy choices about personal care products.
Cook and Bronner discuss how brands built trust with consumers, and Dr. Bronner’s “All One” mission.
From dynamic agroforestry to recycled plastic bottles, Bronner and Cook tackle it all, diving into what makes Dr. Bronner’s – and their soap– truly magical.
Ken: Hi there. I'm Ken Cook and I'm having another episode. I'm really excited about today's episode because I'm talking to a friend, a mentor, inspiration, and a colleague in advocacy. Something I really admire about my guest is that she and her family to me, truly not just talking the talk, but running the walk.
I mean, they're just in there for all the right reasons in trying to make change in the personal care industry, the cleaning industry, the marketplace, the everyday life of consumers. They're coming with products that make it safer, make it better. We have Lisa Bronner on the show. Uh, Lisa is part of the famous Bronner family.
I think I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who's not familiar with Dr. Bronner's. I've had it in my home, all of my homes pretty much, I think, since college, as long as I can remember. Uh, we still use them every day. They call themselves a soap company, but they're a lot more than that. Their scope is advocacy, personal care products, campaigning for regenerative, organic farming. On and on.
We're talking about a company that is committed to being ethical, thoughtful, and forward thinking. Dr. Bronner's operates with a real sense of stewardship, not only for the people they work with and their communities, but they're also industry leaders on the front lines of regenerative, organic agriculture, for example.
Non GMO products, another huge effort that they were involved in reducing their carbon footprint through constant improvement in their operations. So here at EWG, we are very familiar with Dr. Bronner's. All of their skincare products are rated safe in EWG skin deep database, and many are EWG verified.
Lisa is the author of a really, really wonderful book. Enjoyable to read, down to Earth. It's like sitting down and having coffee with her, which I've done, and I gotta tell you, never pass up that opportunity if you get it. The book is called Soap and Soul, A Practical Guide to Minding Your Home, Your Body, and Your Spirit with Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps.
And they're magic for sure. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you want a guide on the chemistry of cleaning your home, a crash course on how to read an ingredient label, or if you just wanna know why behind the safer choices we can make at home. This book is a must read. It's also full of soul and a real reminder that our homes and our families are what really matter.
You can also find out more about her outstanding writing on her blog, Going Green with Lisa Bronner, which is [email protected]. So Lisa, I am delighted I get to spend some time with you today. We're going to be talking about soap. We're gonna be talking about, uh, advocacy. We're gonna be talking about your family's story and legacy.
I'm just beyond excited to have this opportunity to have you on the show.
Lisa: Thanks so much, Ken. It's a joy to be here. I feel like we are old friends and we've crossed paths so many times, uh, that our conversation could go anywhere today, but I'm looking forward to joining you here.
Ken: That's exactly right.
We've been engaged together with your product line, a lot of which is EWG verified. And, uh, we've also been engaged in advocacy with you, everything from organic food to GMO labeling, uh, chemical issues and so forth. Uh, your company's been a leader in advocacy too, and I wanna get into all of that.
But first, tell us a little bit about the history of the Bronner family. I've started reading the label in college. I think in another couple of years, I should pretty much finish it up, but tell us, tell us about the amazing Dr. Bronner and how the family stewardship has evolved.
Lisa: Absolutely. And you really have to have, uh, have a multimedia approach to getting the story because once you finish reading the peppermint bottle, you're gonna have to go on to the lavender and almond.
'cause they all have different parts of his writing, uh, and which I think was part of his brilliance. But some Dr. Bronner, uh, after whom the company is named and who was the founder of the company, was my grandfather. He himself was the third generation soap maker in his family and his family's soap making dates from 1858 in Lau Pine Germany, which is in southern Germany, west of Munich, where his grandfather first was licensed by the soap making guild to make soap, and he made it in the basement of his house where he raised his 11 children above and.
His children knew the craft, but Lau pine didn't need more soap makers. So when they were of age, they moved west to heel bru, which was a larger city. Three of the sons there. My great-grandfather being one of them, founded a very successful soap making operation called Metaform. And they had three, uh, facilities there.
Uh, they distributed soap across Germany. Uh, my grandfather was raised there and he himself went through the apprenticeship program and became a master soap maker as well. However, the family was Jewish, and so in the, uh, tumult of the thirties, the property was confiscated. The family either fled Germany or were arrested.
My grandfather and his sisters all fled and their parents did not, and they, they both perished in concentration camps. So my grandfather came over to the United States where he worked, um, just as a consultant for a number of years before he started the company that became Dr. Bronner's in 1948. So that's when we date our founding of this company, 1948.
He ran it. By power of personality and passion, perseverance, very much in his own way, really was gung-ho all the way until he was, um, slowed down by Parkinson's. In the nineties, my dad took over, but unfortunately my dad died in 1998, uh, shortly after my grandfather. And so then it came into my generation with my brothers.
Uh, David, first off who is our cosmic engagement officer, CEO, and my brother Mike. My mom is still CFO, my husband, uh, Michael Milam is, uh, chief Operating Officer. And, uh, I am not on the executive council. I didn't want to do that. I, I am a teacher by training. I love engaging with people. I love engaging, uh, helping people take their next step forward.
So I wanted to be more on the outreach of the company. So I work in education, advocacy, helping people to take their next step forward. So that's the Bronner family in a nutshell.
Ken: Yeah, and I think in some ways online with your blog and, uh, other media, I do think of you as sort of the, the voice of Dr. Bronner's. I know everyone's involved. I'm glad you picked the role you've picked because you're, you're so damn good at it. And thank you.
I've interviewed you before, but not on this podcast about Soap and Soul, your wonderful book. And I, I recommend it to everybody. It's just a. Great read, you know, in, in the health and wellness space, we can take ourselves just a little bit seriously, do you think? Just maybe yes. Maybe a, a little bit, maybe a little bit pious, maybe a little bit finger pointy and preachy? Just a little. But there's not a trace of it in Soap and Soul and, and I think, uh, for anyone who's interested in getting into. This space of health and wellness and being aware of what's around you in your everyday life.
Soap and Soul is just about the best, spiritual and emotional as well as. Informational guide out there. How'd you sit down and take the time to write it is my first question. 'cause I need to do that someday.
Lisa: Right, right. Well let me tell you, you will never have the time to write a book. That's where you have to start from.
It's not like I had, I had a space in my life where I was like, oh look, I've got time to write a book. I knew I was gonna have to jump in before I was ready. I sat down, what are the essentials? What can I not drop? You know, raising my three children, guiding them through their growing up lives. That one, that one hadn't, didn't go anywhere.
Honestly, the shutdown of 2020 actually helped me, partially because it wasn't going anywhere and a lot of things were canceled, but it also helped me because I wanted to write a book. From my home. During that time, I was more planted in my home. That gave me exactly the rooting. I wanted to write the book because that's where I wanted to speak to people.
I wanted to speak to people when they were off. Not when they were out in their professional realm with their persona and their professional priorities. That's great, but I wanted to speak to them in their off hours. What are you doing when you're at home in your daily lives, when you're, you know, taking off your, your public persona?
I wanted to speak to people there.
Ken: It's a terrific practical guide. Um, if you can be practical about the spirit, and I think one can be, that's a big part of it. Say a little bit more about reaching people when they're not in their, uh, professional or work or official life, when they maybe have their guard down and it's time to talk about the things that maybe are even more important than your professional life, dare I say, or at least as important.
Right.
Lisa: Well, one practice I did before I started writing was defining my audience. I literally wrote, uh. Kind of character reviews of my audience and who I wanted to speak to. I gave them names. I gave them little backgrounds where they were coming from, what their priorities were.
Ken: Introduce us to a few of 'em.
Okay.
Lisa: All right. I had my, my friend Heather. Who wanted to know why she is not in the green space, shall we say. Mm-hmm. As you were saying, we often have a, a lingo of vocabulary that we use in the eco space. Yeah. She doesn't speak that. I wanted to be able to reach her and reach somebody who was saying, why should I bother? Why should I read ingredients? You know, why can't I just go buy the price or the one that smells good or whatever of the product. So that was Heather.
The, the questioner there was Amanda, who was the busy mom who doesn't have time to do the research, but really wants to make the right choices and the healthiest choices.
But she is busy and she's very budget conscious. So I wanted to be able to speak to her to make things, um, actionable. Simple enough. Or you could just take it and go. I also wanted to speak to the budget idea of is, you know, going organic, more expensive, or how can you make sure it's not, because certainly it can be a very expensive endeavor.
Uh, so I wanted to speak to her. I wanted to speak to the professional that perhaps even in the green space already, but wanting to go deeper, really understanding maybe the, um regulations behind the principles that I'm talking mm-hmm. About, uh, why, you know, why is this necessary? What's the next step?
Even perhaps somebody who's involved in advocacy, ready to take the next step forward. Mm-hmm. So I wanted to speak to all of these people and help them wherever they were starting from to move forward. And there's no, no judgment, no shame in where you are. You have to start there and take the next step forward.
So that's what I was trying to do, uh, with my book.
Ken: You did it. Beautifully, in my opinion. I just think it's a, a, a wonderful book for all of those audiences and more, you know, it brings up a, a question that I've been wrestling with lately, how do you go about it when it's not a Dr. Bronner's product where you know everything about it or can read for hours on the label and get a sense of all that's gone into the integrity of the sourcing, the care with the manufacturing, the long commitment to organic, and now a deeper commitment to regenerative organic, which is organic on steroids except steroids aren't allowed.
It's, it's organic with deeper intention. To worry about things that the organic standard right now doesn't necessarily specify. It goes beyond organic. How should consumers just generally, or how do you just generally develop a sense of trust in a company or a brand? Mm-hmm. What do you look for and, and how do you grant authority?
Lisa: Absolutely. And that this is, this is where things become really gray and murky for a consumer because. What, what is marketing? What is some sort of persuasion and what's actual fact? I am a consumer as well as an educator here. Dr. Bronner's makes a few products, a, a, a number of products, but there are quite a few that we don't and we get asked about them all the time.
Sunscreen, deodorant. Yeah. Automatic dishwasher detergent. We don't make those. Uh, we're working on it, but these are things that I too have to purchase. And then, as you said, even bigger, not just, not just products that come out of a bottle, but, uh, I bought a vacuum cleaner recently. Um, I've, you know, I bought a car.
My training from where I'm coming from in this realm of personal care and house cleaning products, I a hundred percent rely on independent research. I am completely comfortable myself looking at research studies. I, I live on, um, the NCBI website and, and Wiley library and all of these. I like reading actual research articles.
I realize that's not necessarily a pastime, other people enjoy. And so, uh, it very much helps to, uh, for me to look at third party independent research organizations. Obviously EWG is is my top go-to when I'm looking at personal care. Yeah. House cleaning, sunscreen. Um, I've even bought a, a water filter system and other ones that are not industry funded, that are independent, that are nonprofits because they, uh, are willing to say, you know, they're willing to say the truth.
I hate to say you can't trust a manufacturer about their own product because we are a manufacturer and I do want you to trust us. But I also want to hear what their reputation is amongst people who don't have any stake in the game. Uh, campaign for Safe Cosmetics is another, uh, organization mm-hmm that I've leaned into myself.
So, yeah, I like knowing what others are saying about products or services before I jump in with my own resources.
Ken: Yeah. You know, people sometimes make fun of the notion of doing your own research. I don't think we should ever discourage people from doing their own research. It's just a, I think a question of getting better and better at the sources that you consult as you're conducting your research, but, uh, why, why wouldn't we want people to be lifelong learners about every aspect of their life?
Lisa: Absolutely.
Ken: I have to say, in the case of Dr. Bronner's, one of the things I've been, uh, very impressed with, you know, it's controversial in some quarters, I think, is the regenerative, organic commitment that you have made.
The criticism that comes sometimes from the organic community is that, well, doesn't that suggest that organic's not enough? When a company's willing to say, we're not there yet, and we're getting there, and we're, and here's where we're headed and here's what we're trying to fix in our ingredients or our manufacturing process, or how we relate to consumers, whatever it might be, there's something about that very human quality of not being infallible that draws me to companies.
How, how does that. Strike you.
Lisa: Absolutely. I mean, honesty, uh, if any of us are honest with ourselves, we know we don't have it figured out. And so if anybody ever says, we've got it all figured out, I mean red flag right there, who has it all figured out Because there is always a journey. It is always a journey.
And when you achieve one. You know, mountaintop, it just gives you a vantage point to see the next one, and then you go on fighting it and go through another trough and and battle the the weeds and all of that. And then you get to another perspective where you can see again the journey of Dr. Bronner's, which actually is really well laid out in my colleague's book.
Honor thy label. About our supply chain development. It talks about a lot of dead ends and backtracks that we had to do in our supply chain. Uh, and we still are, as you might imagine, the search for ethical and sustainable, uh, and now regenerative organic, certified palm oil. It was tough. Yeah, but you know what it came down to, came down to personal relationships.
And a lot of the problems that we ran into were when personal trust was betrayed. Somebody in whom Uhhuh, uh, our team had placed trust, proved themselves untrustworthy, and we had to back up from that relationship. But at the same time, our successes have come from personal relationships as well. I know this is not something every company could do, but we have teams on the ground forming relationships with local, uh, individuals and communities.
Finding a way forward that works for everybody, both the local culture as well as the needs of our company. And so personal relationships really made a difference there. So Dr. Bronner's own journey as a company, like through our certification journey, we've got a lot I, you know. I sit down sometimes and I have to list them all out and I'm always afraid, I'm gonna forget one.
But the first one was organic. And it was organic before there was an organic certification for personal care products. Yeah. Um, David certified under the food standard, which was its own journey. Even before we were done with that, even before we had the certification, we knew it wasn't enough because organic doesn't address labor, it doesn't address the human component.
So we already were eyeing a fair trade. And so, um, as soon as we were freed up with our time and resources, we started to chase it down. Fairtrade, which involved having to form our own companies because there weren't sources of fair trade, uh, coconut oil, palm oil, mint oil in the volume we needed. So that led us in a journey of vertically integrating our supply chain.
Even before we were done with that, we knew that wasn't enough because it doesn't address, uh, animal welfare at all. Uh, not, neither of those do. And also, uh, organic we realized was more about not doing harm, which was fine, but there was a lot of harm that had been done and we had to uh, look into systems that repaired, regenerated the harm that was done, which is where the conversation that eventually became the Regenerative Organic Alliance and the regenerative organic certification came from looks at soil health, rebuilding it, restoring it, looking at the cycle of people, animal welfare, the land itself, uh, in a very complex one, but it's new.
It's hard to get. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, it's not out there very much. So if you, you know, decide I'm only buying regenerative, organic certified products, you're not gonna find very many yet. Yeah. So it's growing. It's growing. So organic is still good. Fair trade is still good. I would say there's a new gold standard.
Ken: Yeah. Let's grow in that direction, you know? No surprise. That one of the companies that has partnered with you on Regenerative Organic is Patagonia, and um, they were one of the first to publish a study on microfibers coming off of their recycled products, their fleece, and so forth. I remember being stunned that they went to the trouble to measure the microfibers that came off from ordinary washing of their own products and publicized it and said, this is a problem. They'd built this whole reputation for using recycled materials and fabric made from, you know, all kinds of plastics and other things. But then they saw, they saw an error in it or a flaw in it. And called attention to it, and they were washing their own garments.
Lisa: 'cause you think, well, maybe this would be a study they'd wanna bury.
Ken: Right. A really impressive and difficult challenge was replacing the uh, PFAS types of chemicals in their garments. I talked to someone many years ago at Patagonia. The person from Patagonia said that they wanted to experiment with other types of water and stain repellent technology, but they were too small to get the mills in China that made their fabrics, uh, to slow down enough to do a couple of runs for them.
It, it was just something that didn't make economic sense for the mills that were operating at such a high level, and I remember thinking. Wow. This is, this is really a, a dimension of industrial change that I, I hadn't occurred to me that there's so much concentration and such scale that you can't experiment.
Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That is the difficulty. I mean, we are small beans as far as the whole realm of manufacturing of consumer products goes. So that is a challenge. But as you were saying, with Patagonia's journey with plastic, uh, and microplastics and the, and the water supply, I mean, that's certainly transparency right there, you know, that Yeah.
It's a priority for them. I will say that's, that's been similar with Dr. Bronner's because there have been things that we've done that we were really proud of, and eventually realizing not enough, like our, our own plastic journey. Shortly after 2000, David spearheaded having our, um, our plastic bottles be 100% post-consumer recycled, and we were the first, uh, CPG company to have a 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottle that had actually had gone through the recycling system and, and we had purchased it back. Uh, and it had, you know, had to be the clarity and the integrity that we needed. That wasn't easy to do. We're really proud of that. A hundred percent PCR. That's great, but it's still plastic. It's still not biodegradable. Being on the front lines of customers questions over the years, I mean, that one has not gone away.
It is still plastic. Why can't you do glass? Why can't you do, uh, aluminum? And part of it is that. The research wasn't there yet. We wanted a real solution. We didn't want to take another step. Yeah. That didn't actually solve Yeah. Solve the problem. And so we looked into glass. Glass is not, not feasible for one thing.
It's so heavy that the, the fossil fuels that needed to move that would be, yeah. Totally nullify. Um, any savings. Plus the fact that most people use our products when they're wet and naked and glass just breaks too easily. Most things don't get recycled. Most very little of our packaging gets recycled. So the honest question is, what is the least impactful for the environment for a product package that just gets thrown out there?
And glass is not gonna buy degrade either. It is very recyclable, but that's just not the reality of how consumers act. And so after looking at glass aluminum, same thing. Uh, we did lifecycle analysis with a third party researcher and we ended up on paper. Uh, we went to paper and so we ju we launched year and a half ago our, uh, paper refill carton.
Yeah. Even that was, it was an 82, we were honest. It's 82% reduction in plastic. It still has a plastic cap and it still has a little bit of plastic in the lining. We have now moved that up to 86%, so we're. We're still working on that awesome ourselves, but even this, this is not where we wanna be because even that is gonna end up, it's, it's a linear path straight from the consumer to some sort of disposal.
And our goal is circular. And so our aim at the moment is refill stations. Partnering with retailers to set up stations that consumers can go and refill their package. The retailer will have the ability to ship larger bulk empties back to us that we can refill and send to them. Then that is the, the true aim that we are at right now is going for a circular packaging system.
And so we have this journey on our website that you can see where we are with that. Darcy Scheer Kno Knowles, our head of our operation, uh, sustainability, uh, initiative. She has been very forthright with where we are and the struggles and what we've overcome, which is great, and what we're still looking to conquer.
Ken: I guess that's what I'm getting at, is when a, when a company is willing to share the things that didn't work yet or that aren't there yet, that just gives me more confidence. In buying from them and actually a motivation to, to buy from them that they're going to try and do something exceptional. You know, let's hope that that will start to feed through the, the marketplace and we'll have containers that are of the quality of yours, although I expect you're spending more money for all of that effort, probably, at least at the beginning.
Then you'd have to spend, if you got just regular old plastic.
Lisa: Oh, absolutely. Well, I mean, yes, as you said, the, the, uh, the initial cost is certainly higher, but if you look at the whole long-term cost of the environment and cleaning up our world when we trash it, um, certainly, yeah, it, it pays off. But even this journey with packaging, it's all about human relationships.
We have had our packaging broker for 30 years. That we have worked with, and he has been on this journey with us as well, to find these resources, to get packaging producers to make these resources. It's all a journey that we're on together and, and we just have to. To, you know, listen to what are the problems, what are the hurdles?
Be innovative about solving them. I think Dr. Bronner's is a perfect size for all of these crazy ideas because, you know, in the scheme of manufacturing and business, we are not a huge company. I think we're considered medium sized, but, uh, so we're big enough to do things, but small enough to be nimble to back up if something's not working, you know, so what's next for us?
Well, our advocacy is ongoing. You said that we're not just a soap company. I so often get a little stumped by the question of what kind of company is Dr. Bronner's, because my grandfather didn't really start it as a soap company. He started it as a missional company. The label was his focus. He wanted to spread his message of world peace and unity across divides to all people.
What vehicle did he have to do that? He had a soap bottle. 'cause that's what he knew how to do was make soap. So we had a literal soap box to stand on. There you go. There you go.
Ken: I knew we were gonna get there.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. So ever since we've had that sort of thing. Um, so we have these sister companies in Ghana and Sri Lanka, Samoa pavement in Northern India.
And we're very involved in the communities there and listening to what their needs are. Uh, one of the biggest ones that we are active in, because it is a profound need in these areas, is period poverty and providing, uh, menstrual health, uh, access for, uh, women and girls who are held back very much by, uh, the period poverty.
And so we have programs in Ghana and India in particular that are education. As well as providing reusable supplies for these, uh, girls and women so that they don't have to step out of the educational pathways or their professional pathways because of this. So that's one very forward area that I'm passionate about.
Ghana is a very busy place for us. We have Surrender Palm is our operation there it is in Assume Ghana, which is not a big city. And it is really a testing ground for regenerative organic agriculture. Uh, we have built up the, uh, palm oil supply there, working with farmers, small holder family farms to walk them through certification, the education involved in that, the paperwork involved in that, the inspections and so on.
But even more so is we have acreage set aside that are test grounds for a concept called dynamic agroforestry. One of the biggest problems in agriculture is, uh, monocropping, which is growing, uh, crops in isolation. Dynamic agroforestry is the counter to that which is growing like nature, which is in diversity.
It's not like throw it all out there and let it, you know, figure itself out. It's very planned. It's very intentional. It takes a, a lot of, of thought and effort, but the output is tremendous. For the earth, for the soil, but also for the farmers. It gives them so much more resilience. Crop stability, year round income because they've got this diversity of harvest.
Um, so if one crop doesn't do well, they don't have to wait till the next year. They've got another one coming. It's just brilliant. I absolutely love the concept. So a lot of our efforts are going into what we're doing there in Ghana, um, with this demonstration ground where we're bringing in, uh, people who can learn the technique.
This is what we hope to do as Dr. Bronner's. We ourselves are not going to change the world, but we can show people how to do it. And as I said, we're nimble enough to try these things to show how it works. We are a profitable company, and yet we're still using sustainable and ethical palm oil and other crops that have been deemed impossible, and we're showing how it can be done being an example to other, uh, organizations.
Taking away the excuse of, oh, we can't do it any better. No, you can't. This is how.
Ken: Yeah. And give it a go and, um, make mistakes along the way inevitably, but, uh, stay true to, to your mission. So what does all one mean? Yeah. Can you explain all one? It's on every single product, and I know it's the guiding philosophy, but say a little bit about it.
Lisa: Yes. All one was my grandfather's mantra. If you had to condense all of his words, is many, many words down into one phrase, it would be all one. You might imagine that growing up, having Dr. Bronner as a grandfather was, was, was an experience and he was my only living grandparent, and so the only like person occupying this, this category of grandparent in my my mind was Dr. Bronner.
He was always speaking from the mountaintop. He was always very mission driven. And so, as you might imagine for a young girl, that was very confusing. Uh, it was very hard to make conversation because, you know, of course I was very self-centered and I wasn't thinking about world peace and man's place in the universe, ed.
So, uh, he, he was bewildering. But the one thing I remember is that every time he would, uh, call and he called quite often, he was so passionate that I think things just overflowed and, and he had a number of us that he would call my, my household, my Uncle Ralph's household in Milwaukee was another one with whatever idea had to come.
And it could be something that he wanted us to write down. Most people don't realize my grandfather was blind from about 1970 on.
Ken: Oh, I didn't know that. Yes.
Lisa: So he, he, I, I never knew him when he could see, and my dad has many stories of his failing eyesight. Not that it stopped him from, you know, driving and doing other things like that.
But, but he was, he was fully blind by like 1970, but he never learned to type and he never learned braille. So every word that he had came out verbally and was, was written down by somebody else. Uh, and so sometimes if it was not an hour that he had somebody on staff on hand, he would call one of us, you know, write this down.
Or read me this line. I, I think I, you know, have a better way to say it. And he had it all in his head. Just amazing. Every word, every exclamation point, every dash, they were all, all in there. So even at these young ages, uh, when my grandfather would call with this, you know, passion and energy, every conversation ended with the phrase all one.
And we would have to say it. And if we did not say it with enough fervor, we'd have to say it again. All one and 'cause this was the concept. It all came down to that we are all one. Our humanity across these divisions that we have put up or that you know are on the surface apparent. Our, our, our racial divisions, our, our ethnic divisions, national divisions, uh, religious, political, philosophical, that we are all one, we're all brothers and sisters on this crazy spaceship earth hurdling through uh, the solar system and it was a profound thing for him to say, because remember where he'd come from?
Ken: Yes. I was just thinking of that. Losing his both parents. Right?
Lisa: Both parents in the concentration camps, his homeland destroyed, his family's legacy was decimated. And then his wife here, uh, he married a, another German immigrant who happened to be Catholic here in the States.
She had a very tragic story as well, and ended up being institutionalized in the early forties. She died in that institution. He would only refer very briefly to her being, you know, 67 pounds and had a broken jaw when she died. So, I mean, oh my gosh, horrible. Uh, right at the same time as his parents were arrested and, and perishing in Germany.
So you. He would've had every reason to be bitter, to be resigned, to be resentful.
Ken: Focused on yourself.
Lisa: Exactly. You know, he's an immigrant. Yeah. In the United States, which is a very difficult thing. He's Jewish. He's German in the forties, and he had nothing. He told stories about sleeping on the rooftop of the YMCA with the pigeons, but all of this, uh, takes away every excuse any of us could have of saying My life has been too hard.
I mean, so the all one philosophy, um, came out of that, uh, which is why you have quotations in his writing. From every resource he could get his hands on, anyone he felt was pursuing excellence, was pursuing the betterment of mankind. And it wasn't all about expending yourself in service to others because he had this concept called the moral A, B, C, which is like the basic elementary principles.
That cross divides, you can find them in every different theory, philosophy, religion. The first one is to take care of yourself. If I don't take care of myself, what am I? Nothing. And the second one is, but if I only take care of myself, you know, who am I? I'm no one. So you have to do both. You have to take care of yourself or else you're useless, but you also have to take care of each other.
And so that's where all one comes down to. You'll see it in our logo, uh, that is on the bottle. Uh, you'll see it, uh, at our, uh, headquarters. I mean, if you had to boil it down to one little thing, it's, it's our, is this for the betterment? Of all people of the world, every inhabitant that lives here.
Ken: Wow. What an inspirational, amazing story.
And, um, I just, uh, I, I admire the family even more now, uh, which I wasn't sure was possible for, for, uh, how you've carried. Wonderful tradition forward. It's lofty. It's it's elevated and, um, it reads true. And I'm, I'm so grateful to have had some time to visit with you about it. And, um, is there anything else you'd, you'd like to add?
Lisa: I, I'm always hesitant to leave people with the impression as you've covered previously, that we have it all figured out and it's all perfect. We are a family and we all come from some family or another, and you might imagine that there have been bumps along the way. Uh, my brothers and I basically grew up at the same time as we were trying to figure out how to run this company, and it was going through some rocky times because my grandfather was not big on succession planning and such. So when he died it was, it was bumpy. And then my dad died a year later and we were just growing up. I mean, David, David started, he was 24.
Ken: I've got a 21-year-old. He's great kid, but you know, uh, not ready to run a company, you know, break
Lisa: it, but
Ken: yeah. Yeah,
Lisa: yeah. And so. You know, there was a lot of, you know, figuring out the sibling dynamic, the brother dynamic. Uh, at the same time as the company, a lot of people have shown us grace because they've come in, uh, to advise, to guide, but it's all about, you know.
Resilience, keeping going, apologizing, finding a better way. And we each found our spot and that's been the key thing. We each found our spot. David is really super passionate, super visionary, works on the big macro level, changes systemic problems. Tackles huge concepts, you know, from drug policy reform to agriculture, the way the world does agriculture.
I mean, massive topics. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, you know, and that's where he's at. He's good at it. He's got a passion for it, a vision for it. I'm trying to help people in their daily lives make their daily decisions and, you know, what can I do to help the world where we can, we can each work on what we have in front of us.
Ken: I have to say in, in every interaction I've had with the family, it's next level, consistently, the commitment of the company and the spirit, each of you bring to the, to the challenges we face. I'm so proud that Dr. Bronner's is part of the EWG verified program, the amazing products that are in the program.
And I'm also proud that we've, uh, fought side by side on any number of, of advocacy issues. So. Thank you for, for joining Lisa Bronner, and I'll just, uh, have to end by saying All One pal.
Lisa: All one. All one. There you go.
Ken: Thank you, Lisa.
Lisa: Thank you so much, Ken. It's been my pleasure.
Ken: Thank you to Lisa Bronner for joining us today, and thank you out there for listening.
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