Mrs. May Trio bars made in China

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I recently came across one of these Mrs. May Trio Bars.  Looks natural and healthy.
Mrsmays1.pngI flipped over the package to check out the ingredients to see how natural these are and noticed that the bar was made in China. 
Mrsmays2.pngThese days I know we're all used to having every toaster and computer made in China, but are we ready to have our food products made there?

I was more concerned about the ingredients being from China, but I found out that Mrs. May sources 60% of the ingredients here in the United States, but ships it to China for processing and then back to the United States for sale.  The last 40% of the ingredients are sourced from Vietnam.  Mrs. May moved production from Orange County, California to China 5 years ago according to this article.

AllBusiness.com: Nuts and Boats: Mrs. May's Naturals Ships Food Materials to China to Process, then Back to the U.S. for Sale

Abbye Freiman, a food manufacturing consultant based in Torrance, said that she knows of no other food company that ships raw materials to Asia for manufacturing and gets finished products sent back to the United States for sales.
...
"It comes down to basically cost of labor," said James Kim. "The amount of money that it will cost us to hire 50 people in China for a month is equivalent to one person's monthly salary here. It is not like we are underpaying them; it is the going rate. It's like having 200 people at the factory at the cost of four or five here."
The minimum wage in California is $8/hour.  A person's yearly salary at that rate, working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year $16,640 or $1387 per month.  If Mrs. May is hiring 50 people for that amount, each employee is making $27.74 a month.  If you give weekends off, which is a questionable premise since it is common for factories in China to give employees only a couple of days off month, employees are making making $1.27 a day or $.16/hour assuming 8 hour days.  This may be the prevalent wage, but is it a fair one?

Can you blame Mrs. May for moving production to China when labor costs are this low?  This is raw capitalism

When people say that the government should stay out of businesses way, this is what we get.  Companies maximizing profit without accepting societal or environmental consequences.

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3 Comments

I love Trio bars, but today I broke my tooth while eating one. After reading this post I wonder if sending their product to China has something to do with it. There was definitely something in there that shouldn't have been there.

No more Trio bars for me either...When I noticed the product being made in China, I refused to buy anymore...

COSTCO discontinued the sale of this product in May 2011...according to Sue at customer services.

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