By Amy Venner and Dave Sandoval, Co-Founders of Purium
Last week, we got on three Zoom calls and shared news we never imagined having to share. After 22 years in network marketing, Purium is moving to a simpler affiliate business model on October 31.
We knew this announcement would be hard to hear. Since then, we’ve heard from people who are disappointed and upset, and from many others who are genuinely excited about what comes next.
There has also been a lot said about Purium and about why we made this decision. Rather than respond to every rumor, we want to share the story with you ourselves, because you deserve to hear it from us.
We Didn’t Want to Leave Network Marketing
Network marketing has been how Purium reached people for 22 years. It gave people a way to share something they believed in, and it brought better nutrition into tens of thousands of homes. Along the way, it created friendships that have lasted decades, and it gave many of you a way to earn an income doing something you loved. We are proud of that history, and we are especially proud of the people who built it with us.
The honest truth is that the model that served us for so many years was no longer financially sustainable for Purium.
For the past two years, we have been working to turn things around. We cut expenses wherever we could, restructured the compensation plan, changed how we ran our operations and reduced the amount of inventory we carried. We also borrowed money and put substantial personal resources into keeping the company going.
During that time, we watched sales decline, recruiting slow down and fewer people advance through the ranks. We kept looking for ways to reverse those trends because we believed we could make it work.
This wasn’t a decision we made from a distance. We put our own resources and our time into finding another way because the thought of losing Purium, and everything it means to so many people, was so hard to accept. Walking away from what we had built together was the last thing we wanted to do.
Eventually, we had to face the reality that continuing this way could put the whole company at risk, including our ability to keep making the food that brought all of us together in the first place.
We Explored Another Way to Keep the Business Together
Before making this decision, we explored joining forces with a much larger international network marketing company. For a while, we hoped that might be the answer. It could have kept Purium in network marketing, taken a lot of financial pressure off and potentially opened new doors for our products around the world.
We were even willing to step away from ownership if it meant protecting what we had built together, including the relationships with our Brand Partners, our products and our commitment to the environment.
But there was one thing we could not walk away from: the integrity of our products.
Our formulas, our organic ingredients, our manufacturing standards and our commitment to environmentally responsible packaging are fundamental to who we are.
We needed to feel confident those things would be protected, and in the end, we could not reach an agreement that gave us that confidence. So we made the difficult decision not to move forward.
We Chose the Food
Long before Purium was a network marketing company, we were making food. We started with a simple belief that the quality of the food you eat is equal to the quality of the life you live, and with products we would be proud to give our own families.
We built a manufacturing facility and a team of people who cared deeply about what they were making. Network marketing became the way we shared those products, but the products have always been the reason.
That commitment lives in details many people never see. It starts with the farmers who grow our organic ingredients and the vendors we carefully evaluate before we ever buy from them. Every truck gets inspected when it arrives, and our ingredients go through extensive quality testing in our own onsite laboratory and through independent third-party labs.
These are things we’ve invested in for decades because we believe that what goes into your food matters just as much as what stays out of it.
None of that is changing. Those are the standards that earned your trust, and they are the ones carrying us forward.
So when we found ourselves facing the possibility of losing everything we had worked to build, we had to decide what mattered most. If we could no longer hold on to the business model, we knew we could still protect the food and keep serving our customers, and that is why we’re making this change.
Moving to an affiliate model has nothing to do with losing faith in the people who built Purium. We made this choice to protect the reason Purium exists in the first place.
We Know This Decision Has Hurt People
This part is the hardest for us to write. Some of you spent years building your Purium businesses and introducing thousands of people to our products, and you counted on the income that came from that work.
We know this decision affects you in ways an announcement can’t begin to address, and we understand why some people are upset. Explaining our reasons doesn’t erase the impact.
Some of you have already chosen to move on, and others are still deciding what comes next. We respect that, and we would never ask anyone to pretend this is easy or to celebrate something that feels like a loss.
What we do want you to know is that your contributions mattered. You helped build something that has touched an incredible number of lives, and we will never forget that.
We also know there are questions about commissions earned under the previous plan, and those obligations matter to us. We are making our best efforts to pay what is owed, and our ability to do that depends on the revenue coming into the business.
We will keep communicating about where things stand. Trust isn’t something we can ask you to give us, and we know we have to earn it through what we do next.
Something Else Happened That Gave Us Hope
In the middle of one of the hardest weeks of our lives, something happened that reminded us why we have fought so hard for Purium.
You showed up.
Hundreds of you joined our calls, and many of you stayed for hours asking questions and sharing your own Purium stories.
Some of you were understandably upset. Many of you also told us something we really needed to hear, that you still love Purium and you still want the food.
Some of you said you’re excited to share your favorite products without ranks or monthly qualifications. Others told us they know people who never considered Purium because they didn’t want to be part of network marketing, and those doors may be opening now.
None of that makes the hard parts go away. It did remind us that there is still a future here worth fighting for.
What Comes Next
On October 31, Purium begins a new chapter. We’re moving to everyday pricing and a new online shopping experience, along with an affiliate program that lets people earn by referring customers directly.
You won’t need to build an organization or hit a rank, and there’s no monthly qualifying order. Our goal is to make Purium easier to buy and easier to share, so these superfoods can reach more people.
We will keep manufacturing in Southern California and holding to the quality standards that make our products different. Every product in the Ultimate Lifestyle Transformation is staying. We will streamline some lower-volume products, and we’ll give you notice before anything is retired.
Our community isn’t going anywhere either, and our weekly Zoom calls will continue.
We have work ahead of us, and not everything will be perfect on day one. We also have a path forward and people who want to help us build it.
To those of you moving in another direction, thank you for everything you contributed, and we wish you every success.
To those of you staying with us, thank you for believing there is still something here worth building.
And to anyone finding Purium for the first time, welcome to the Purium family.
We can’t change how hard these last few weeks have been. What we can do is decide what comes next.
We have spent more than two decades building Purium because we believe better nutrition changes lives. As long as we have the opportunity to keep making these foods and getting them into people’s homes, that is exactly what we intend to do.
And we’re starting right away.
On Monday, November 2, we’re kicking off a group transformation, a chance for all of us to refocus on our health and head into the holiday season feeling our best.
We’ll be sharing our experiences and supporting one another through Transformation Support Lives in our Purium Community Facebook group. Whether you’ve been with us for years, have some Purium products sitting in your pantry, or are brand new, we’d love for you to join us.
The business model is changing. Our mission is not.
With love and gratitude,
Amy and Dave
Learn more about how the new Purium Affiliate Program works.
Commissions depend on qualifying sales and are not a guarantee of income. Affiliates must clearly disclose their relationship with Purium whenever they share and may not make disease or income claims.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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