i am on kind of a tight budge at the moment, and have to curtail some of my usual supplement and health type purchases, but its definitely on the list.

Everyone does seem to copy eneryone else, not only in this industry. And then often they claim to have "discovered" or "invented" things and go make money out of it.

About SCD's marketing, I have mentioned this before but I'm gonna give one more example.

Have a look at their "Efficient Microbes" brochure:
http://scdworld.com/shop/product_PDF/040101.pdf

Quote:
"The "EM Inside" logo guarantees that the highest quality EM technology is used. This logo signifies that EM technology from Sustainable Community Development LLC ("SCD") & its partner companies has been used..."

And their "Efficient Microbes" datasheet (11 Aug 2006):
http://www.scdworld.com/documents/CM40.CofA.8.11.06.pdf

Quote:
"The SCD EM inside logo signifies the highest quality effective microorganisms (EM) products in the world. These products are produced using proprietary formulations, culturing processes and quality control standards."

Both linked from here:
http://www.scdworld.com/shop/product.cfm?product_id=040101

For somebody who is not well informed this may sound pretty simple. In reality though, Effective Microorganisms is a trademark owned by EMRO. Now you can see what that really means. I'm not supporting EMRO's business just making a point. SCD does this sort of thing throughout their website.

Say a company develops a product called Coca-Cola and a new company comes along with a similar product called Pepsi. Then they create a Pepsi logo, trademark it so that only they can use it, and say "this logo signifies the highest quality Coca-Cola". Not only that, they also define the quality standards for the so called Coca-Cola, so that basically now Pepsi is the only real Coca-Cola.

EMRO is well aware of what's going on:
http://www.emtechnologynetwork.org/~en/_web/letters/notice041904.html

Quote:
"We would like to inform viewers of this site that there are many products similar to Effective Microorganisms that use the same or similar name, or the acronym "EM". Many of these products make claims of the same purpose or make claims crossing the bounds of legality and business ethics, or even state the same or similar microorganisms and/or ingredients."

Despite this, EMRO sits watching. I think the reason they haven't tried to sue SCD is because that could possibly bring bad publicity. Like when Microsoft goes after small business because they have products with remotely vaguely similar names. But this is not the same thing. And SCD is clearly not a small humble company as they might lead people believe with their apparently so humble name "Sustainable Development Community".

Teruo Higa created a problem for himself when he trademarked "Effective Microorganisms". If he had made it a generic term and created different trademark names for his products I think he would have saved himself some trouble. Doing that would probably have made competitors use generic terms to describe their products and stop them from trying to use his trademark to promote their own products. His products could have even done better that way.

The founder of SCD is a former student of Teruo Higa. The founder of Biosa is also a former student of Teruo Higa. But I have not seen Biosa doing what SCD does in their marketing. Again, I am not siding with Biosa or anyone.

About the "liquid probiotic" price issue. This is just another labeling and marketing point. The organisms in the EM herbal "probiotics" are pretty much the same organisms that are in the other EM products, only with the herbs added. The shelf life is the same and doesn't require extra care, so except for the herbs there isn't a major change in costs. I think the herbs after being fermented are quite different, so they might not be a problem for people who have problems with them when they are not fermented.

And no, none of the microbial products from any of these three companies are cheap. Subjectively they may be a lot cheaper than other health products but objectively they are not cheap. I'm pretty sure the cost of their production is very small, and these products have a very good shelf life and are easy to handle.

It's like before we could only choose between the affordable breadcrumbs or the exorbitant croissant. Now somebody comes with a loaf of bread and sell it for an expensive price but cheaper than the croissant, so we think it's cheap. But that's because we depend on others for our food, we don't know how to make the bread and how cheap it really is when you make it yourself.

No company can charge too much for a loaf of bread nowadays not only because of the competition but simply because people would be able to make it themselves if they wanted to or if the prices were too expensive. People buy bread instead of making it because they want to, not because they have no choice. I know in some contries there are even laws that limit the prices of basic foods, but even without this type of regulation the limits set themselves.