Health and Beauty Update
Hey Co-op, Where Did My Favorite Hand Sanitizer Go?
by Jacob Vincent
Co-op HABA Merchandiser
A die-hard Co-op member who loves the Co-op and shops at all of our stores asked why we stopped carrying her favorite hand sanitizer—Clean Well. It’s a good question with a good answer. With the help of tenacious Co-op dietitian Mary Saucier Choate, we took a closer look at Clean Well some time ago, and what we found led to removing it from our shelves.
Looking at the Label
Anyone who knows the Co-op’s fireball of a food and nutrition educator, Mary Saucier Choate, knows that Mary reads a lot of labels—looking for both good and bad. She pays attention to what labels say, and particularly the claims that they make. Something about Clean Well caught Mary’s eye, and she investigated further.
To make a long story short, the Co-op is no longer carrying Clean Well products in our stores because we found, with Mary’s help, that that the active ingredient had not been approved by the FDA as an effective sanitizer. Though there is certainly nothing apparently hazardous or dangerous about Clean Well, we felt we were misleading our customers by carrying what might be an inappropriately labeled product.
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