*By Bridgette Webb*
When personal-care company Schmidt's Naturals decided to expand its efforts to protect animals and the environment, it tapped a major ally of the cause: environmentalist and renowned chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall.
"She's been a family friend for a long time," Michael Cammarata, the company's co-founder and CEO, said Tuesday in an interview on Cheddar.
The pair created a deodorant inspired by one of Goodall's favorite floral scents, calling the special edition product "Lily of the Valley." Five percent of every purchase will go to the Jane Goodall Institute, which conducts field research at Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park, runs a sanctuary for chimps, and facilitates community-centered conservation work around the globe.
According to Cammarata, Goodall is not only a friend to his company, but a trusted advisor.
"When we were debating options at the end of last year to go IPO or to sell ... Jane actually was one of the biggest supporters of us going with Unilever and expanding out globally. So I said, 'Jane, if I am going with Unilever then you have to come along and we've got to make every dollar count and make a positive impact.'"
Unilever ($UN) added Schmidt’s Naturals in December 2017 to its portfolio of consumer brands, which includes Dove, Axe, ice-cream brand Breyers and condiment-maker Hellmann’s.
Schmidt's Naturals operates with a larger mission to promote "mindful consumerism." Cammarata said he was initially concerned that Unilever may not honor that same commitment. But those fears eventually subsided.
"Unilever is actually promoting what we have done," Cammarata said. "We've now expanded globally."
Without Unilever, he added, "I think we would never have been able to do that at the speed we are doing now."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/schmidts-naturals-and-jane-goodall-partner-up).
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
