The once vacant storefront at 56 College Street is no longer empty. It is now home to Ignite Nutrition, a store selling protein shakes, protein coffee and energy teas – and they use products from Herbalife Nutrition, a well-known multi-level marketing (MLM) company.
The Campus confirmed that the company sells Herbalife products by browsing the items available to order on its app, “Engage,” whose seller is listed in the App Store as “Herbalife Ltd, Inc.” Ignite Nutrition offers probiotics, aloe, and Herbalife flavoring as beverage supplements available to order through “Engage.” And a recent TikTok on the company’s account, @ignitenutrition802, showed them making a drink with Herbalife’s “High Protein Iced Coffee Drink Mix.”
Co-owners Karen Dumas and BobbiJo Jones spoke to The Campus in an earlier interview focused on opening their new business, but they declined a follow-up in-person interview and did not respond to three emails seeking comment. on Ignite Nutrition’s use of Herbalife Products.
Multilevel marketing, also known as network marketing or direct marketing, is a sales strategy in which products cannot be purchased from retail stores, but rather from private stores that purchase the product in bulk. As a result, Herbalife Distributors – and other MLM Distributors – are not big company employees, but customers who encourage their storefront customers to do the same.
In the case of Herbalife, customers – or “members” as they are sometimes called – are encouraged to open “nutrition clubs”. In these storefronts, Distributors typically sell Herbalife products and encourage other customers to get involved.
Founded in 1980 by Mark Hughes and originally endorsed by public figures such as Chuck Norris and Madeleine Albright, the dietary supplement company has generated considerable controversy over the years.
In 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Herbalife for engaging in “unfair and deceptive acts or practices.” The lawsuit settled with Herbalife paying $200 million to distributors who were misled into believing they would earn a substantial income.
The FTC lawsuit concerned the practices of the Herbalife Nutrition company; there is nothing illegal about stores selling Herbalife products. In fact, prior to 2016, the majority of Herbalife distributors either made no profit or lost money, according to the official complaint filed by the FTC.
Herbalife was also forced to restructure some business operations that the FTC said were more focused on recruiting distributors than selling the product itself.
Owners Dumas and Jones told Campus more about their new business, which opened Aug. 18, in a previous interview, before Campus learned about Ignite’s use of Herbalife products.
Prior to opening Ignite Nutrition, Dumas and Jones spent a combined 61 years working for McDonald’s. Dumas was a supervisor in charge of five restaurants across Vermont and New Hampshire and Jones was a store manager at McDonald’s in Middlebury.
“We decided we wanted to go on our own,” Dumas, who first trained Jones as a junior manager nearly fifteen years ago, said at The Campus on Thursday, September 15. “We did this because it’s more laid back, it’s relaxing. We [can] talk to our guests and take the time we wanted.”
Neither Dumas nor Jones are from Middlebury. However, the ties they already had working in the area and the store’s central location between the college and Middlebury town center made the decision to open Ignite at 56 College Street an obvious choice.
The menu includes 30 different flavors of protein shakes, each containing 24 grams of protein and 6-10 grams of sugar. It also offers iced coffees with protein and a wide assortment of sugar-free iced teas, which can be brewed at four different caffeine levels – “on”, “boosted”, “half coffee” or without caffeine.
But by calling some of their protein smoothies “Meal-Replacement Shakes”, Ignite’s menu caught the eye of the Middlebury Students Promoting Eating-Disorder Awareness and Knowledge (MIDD SPEAK) student group.
MIDD SPEAK president Samara Gordon Wexler ‘23.5 told The Campus she would probably never set foot in the facility. Although she has no complaints about the products themselves, Gordon Wexler said the shakes’ advertising as a “meal replacement” could be a trigger for students struggling with eating disorders. .
Gordon Wexler added that meals should contain at least 600-800 calories, if not more, but Ignite’s shakes only contain 180-230 calories.
In response to a follow-up email from The Campus, Dumas said that while she and Jones are not nutritionists, they wanted to provide an attractive option for students looking to supplement their healthy habits.
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“Healthy eating habits don’t end with just one meal,” Dumas wrote. “You have to have routines in place all day. A healthy diet should be balanced with exercise. There is no single solution. You can use our shakes as post-workout protein recovery.
A student who went to Ignite Nutrition said he was asked to give his email address and phone number when purchasing a menu item.
Sam Lipin ‘23.5 is a sportswriter.
He is majoring in Classics with a minor in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies.
During his first semester with the Campus, Lipin covered the men’s baseball team and the women’s track and field team in addition to writing several feature articles. Besides his work for the Campus, Lipin has hosted 2 separate radio shows through WRMC. He first hosted “Shivitzing in Chutzpah”, a talk show on the world’s most complex issues, then “Oy! What is this myth? in which Lipin recounted ancient Roman and Greek myths.