Upfield (manufacturers of Flora marg, and Proactiv) don't want Mumsnet to buy their products any more

[Barracker]

They've made the decision to 'no longer work with Mumsnet' because they want to 'treat everyone equally' because of their 'values'.

By this I'm sure they mean any woman who uses this site should definitely NOT buy their products. That would be an unpleasant association between mumsnet and their values that would be too much to bear.

Here is a helpful list of their products that they don't want in any way associated with Mumsnet:

Country rock
Flora
Rama
BlueBand
Lätta
Flora Proactiv
Becel
I can't believe it's not butter

Please don't sully their brands with any association from you, you horrid mumsnetters. Your money is tainted with unacceptable values.

There’s no way a business decision was made that fast. Dear god it takes board meetings to change coffee brand on the canteens.

I’m such a chicken shit - had a massive rant typed out ready to send Upfield but lost my nerve when they asked for my personal details.

I haven't read this whole (I'm travelling right now) but:

Flora, and ALL margarine, is vile stuff. It is not at all good for us, and we should not give it to ourselves, our children, any living thing.
Butter is the way to go.
Margarine is an artificial product. It's very unhealthy. We should be boycotting it, and spreading the word.

You could get in touch with a pseudonym and explain in your message? I don't think they realise that women (and politicians apparently!) are so scared by TRA tactics of doxxing and bullying.

I've filled in the complaint form - much good it will do. I think they will love the publicity and won't give a shit about us boycotting. But it's worth a try. Maybe some human being on the other end will hear the worries that we have and think twice.

And frankly if you believe it's your real name deep inside, then who are they to argue?

They sell Flora here in Spain as well, but I never buy their spreadable cholesterol (olive oil and butter FTW). I'll investigate what other products are sold by Updfield here and boycott accordingly.

This is a very unwise move on their side.

Dear Upfield, I'm going to make sure all my female friends and male friends (ie everyone I know) who support women having sex-based rights know to boycott your products. You utter f*ckwits. Can't wait until you come crawling back. I will NEVER forget. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.

These brands are now owned by KKR, a huge investment company.
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/15/unilever-sells-household-name-spreads-to-kkr-for-6bn

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg_Kravis_Roberts

I find it hard to believe that a multinational hedge fund, with a founder who donated $1 million to Donald Trump, is operating from a position of values.

It’s much more likely that after the acquisition, KKR are realigning the advertising of those products in line with all their other products. Some woke lower-level management bozo probably thought he could get some social brownie points from announcing the inevitable in terms of values.

This is so much more sinister than this. Just look at the global reach of KKR and watch to see if anyone higher up the ladder reigns in Upfield.

If not, you have to see this as a powerful corporate shot across the bows of Mumsnet. When corporations start to wield their financial power in the socio-political arena, particularly in the suppression of free speech, then we are moving perilously close to the Germany of the 1930s.

Corporations want a cheap and compliant workforce and mindless consumers, so if they are becoming involved in backing certain social and legal moves that do not, at first sight, seem to be in their immediate financial interests then the ideology behind these moves deserves closer scrutiny.

Although it is a torturous read and I can't quite battle my way to the end of it Martine Rothblatt's From Transgender to Transhuman: a manifesto on the freedom of form is the nearest thing that I have found to a transgender manifesto.

What we need to be asking, is how does transgenderism benefit the huge corporations and the people at the top of them?

yulet

Complained

I also pointed out they haven’t provided a privacy notice on how data will be stored and used and I do not give my consent for it to be used for anything other than responding to my complaint

Flora, and ALL margarine, is vile stuff. It is not at all good for us, and we should not give it to ourselves, our children, any living thing.
Butter is the way to go.
Margarine is an artificial product. It's very unhealthy. We should be boycotting it, and spreading the word.

I have very high cholesterol, and for years cut down on milk, butter, cream. I suddenly had a craving, started buying butter and walloping it onto my bread, cream and walloping it onto everything. After months of dreadful self-indulgence I repented and went for a cholesterol test, dreading the results, and my bad cholesterol levels had reduced by over 10% and the good had gone way up 😲 I don't eat meat, but that hadn't helped the cholesterol levels in the past.

Still feeling that mimmymum is pointing out to us that she can pick off MN's advertisers one by one and close the site.

Really? And you think an appropriate response to this is to run away scared?

I can't believe this company would end its relationship with Mumsnet so abruptly based on what liked like 10 seconds research. Surely that's a major marketing decision that would need to be carefully planned. They must realise that the controversy they're stirring is going to be counter productive. Someone somewhere at that company is going to be furious at that tweet.

You lot are in for it now! I'm on a diet so no butter for me (and I love the stuff!). All you butter eaters, I'm going find some vegan/veggie activist group to report this thread you'll be sorry.

Getting me all worked up about butter, shame on you!

Do it Dyrne- courage calls to courage....

Plus they will have so many complaints it will just be one in a mahooosive pile

(Smears butter gleefully on toast)

I do have a particular reason to buy Flora but won't any more, their loss. Oh, and nor will my ma, my auntie, my cousin and at least 3 mates. That's just who I've spoken to overnight - I'll be talking to more today and so will they. See, women talk and if a company doesn't want our business, that's fine. They won't get it.

I've just complained too.
My favourite comment from the other thread
Are you fairly new to MN LangCleg?
I actually did Laugh out Loud

What we need to be asking, is how does transgenderism benefit the huge corporations and the people at the top of them?

Profit. The only thing that motivates huge corporations is profit. There's no point to them otherwise.

I suppose if everybody was considered completely interchangeable, there would be no need to worry about spending money on single sex spaces, pregnancy and maternity provision, monitoring gender pay gaps, equality of any kind. There would be no need to worry about sex-based R&D (such as pharmaceuticals). All such differences would be cosmetically smoothed away.

The products would be ineffective for about 51% of the population, of course, but never mind that - look at the profits!

@HumberElla tell me more about Strava.... not that I pay for subscription

Just in case mumsnet were feeling scared about losing ad £££, they could always consider a subscription model. I would definitely pay a couple of quid a month to be able to read the FWR board. The conversation were ‘allowed’ to have there it too important to be held to random by shitty brands like Flora.

Butter here too, obvs.

I would also subscribe to FWR.

Surely 'treating everyone equally' includes treating equally those who don't go along with the 'trans' thing and who, aside from the biological angle, are getting a bit tired of companies jumping on the trans/Pride bandwagon, when their core business has nothing to do with it, and pushing it at customers?

I'm thinking here of banks, vehicle breakdown recovery and guardians of stately homes, amongst others.

I really don't care if people choose to be QWERTY+ or whatever but it seems that if people don't want to jump on the bandwagon they are 'haters' and 'bigots', which are offensive terms in themselves.

I would like to say I will stop buying Flora but I stopped buying it years ago when it was branded 'the margarine for men'.

Complained. The silencing of women’s voices is appalling.