Nontoxic care products find market

NATURAL RESOURCES: As a 14-year-old teenager, Ava Anderson, above right, became concerned about chemicals in personal-care products she and her family used. She got rid of the products but didn’t stop there. In 2009, she formed Ava Anderson Non Toxic with her brother, Frohman, and their mother, Kim. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
NATURAL RESOURCES: As a 14-year-old teenager, Ava Anderson, above right, became concerned about chemicals in personal-care products she and her family used. She got rid of the products but didn’t stop there. In 2009, she formed Ava Anderson Non Toxic with her brother, Frohman, and their mother, Kim. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

When Ava Anderson was 14 years old she became highly concerned with the listed ingredients she found in her personal-care products.
After doing a little research she reacted by throwing away most of her products, along with those belonging to her family members, and starting a blog to talk about how some of these products – containing possible carcinogens, reproductive toxins and chemicals banned in other countries – can cause harm to the body.
About a year later, in 2009, Ava, her brother, Frohman, and their mother, Kim, launched Ava Anderson Non Toxic, which today is a fast-growing, direct-sales business. Currently a student attending Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., Ava Anderson says the company aims to offer a healthier alternative option to mainstream products, but also to raise awareness about certain ingredients.
“There are only 11 banned ingredients in the U.S., but there are over 1,300 in Europe,” Anderson said. “What that means is that there are [companies] that are actually reformulating products to sell in Europe, but back here in the U.S. they leave in known, harmful chemicals because it’s cheaper and easier and no one is telling them to do otherwise.”
The company’s manufacturing center, at 76 Commercial Way, East Providence, employs about 45 people and produces 11 different categories of products, including skin care, body care, pet products, baby products, fragrances and sunscreen. Consumers can purchase any of Ava Anderson’s 75 products either through its website, or from an Ava Anderson “sales consultant” throughout the country.
Kim Anderson says the company has more than 6,000 consultants countrywide and about 1,100 of them joined in 2014’s final quarter.
“The direct-sales model takes a while to develop,” she said, when asked why so many people had joined sales so recently.
Ava Anderson says they’ve spent an exorbitant amount of time seeking out and testing ingredients, like beeswax, aloe, and shea butter, which they consider safer and less harmful than chemicals included in competitors’ products. “Our ingredients are from all over the world,” she said. “The reason we have [natural ingredients] in our products is because we believe nature had it right in the beginning.”
Anderson spends less time running the business now that she’s enrolled in college, but takes time out of each week to talk with different sales teams, interested customers and potential consultants about the benefits of her product. She’s even been to Washington, D.C., twice to advocate on behalf of safer care products and for more-stringent regulations on potentially harmful chemicals.
“I’m not involved now on a daily basis, but I like to approve all the new labels and products and do the [public relations] and whatnot,” Anderson said, when asked how she juggles work and studying. “On the weekends and during the summer and vacation I can spend more time on it, and after graduation it will be a full-time job.”
The direct-sales model of business has worked well for the family. Kim Anderson says to think of Ava Anderson’s Non Toxic like an “organic Mary Kay.” For $99, sales consultants receive a starter kit and tools and free training on how to pitch the product. Consultants can recruit their own members and establish “teams” and earn money in four different ways, including 30-50 percent on personal sales and up to 9 percent on group sales as “sponsor consultants.”
“In Rhode Island, we have five [or] six people earning more than six figures on an annual run rate and one, this month, cut a check for more than $40,000,” she said.
The company, previously in Barrington, outgrew that space, so it bought its current building in East Providence.
Ava Anderson will finish out her studies and return to the company to further develop her products and business. Her mother hopes to see the business continue to expand because she believes it has the ability to act as a catalyst for change in how the country views chemicals.
“We’d like to create a paradigm shift for how these products are used in this country,” Kim Anderson said. •

COMPANY PROFILE
Ava Anderson Non Toxic
OWNERS: Ava, Frohman and Kim Anderson
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Health and wellness direct sales
LOCATION: 76 Commercial Way, East Providence
EMPLOYEES: 45
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2009
ANNUAL SALES: WND

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