Melaleuca News

Melaleuca promotes new President of International

Press Release | 1/4/2018

In this role, Felton will oversee all of Melaleuca’s international operations in the 16 countries where it does business.

Felton has been with Melaleuca for nine years and served as the Senior Vice President of Sales for Melaleuca Inc. for 3 and a half years before being promoted to Senior Vice President of International. During the last five years, under Felton’s leadership, Melaleuca’s international operations have tripled in size. And in the last three years alone, these international operations have grown by over $800 million in annual sales.

“Jerry has been a skillful administrator in leading Melaleuca’s operations both domestically and internationally,” VanderSloot said. “He is extremely well prepared to take on this role. Our 16 international companies are in good hands.”

Prior to Melaleuca, Felton spent 17 years at UPS, the largest shipping company in the world, where he served as the company’s Vice President of Global Accounts.

“I am humbled,” Felton said. “Our international success is a tribute to the whole world-wide Melaleuca team who has worked so hard and produced tremendous results over the years.”

Melaleuca Pays $2.8 Million in Employee Longevity Bonuses

Press Release | 11/18/2017

November 16, 2017 -- IDAHO FALLS — Melaleuca rewarded 230 employees who have reached landmark anniversaries this year by giving them $2.8 million in loyalty and longevity bonuses during the company’s annual meeting. These bonuses were distributed to 180 employees from Idaho Falls and Rexburg, 45 from Knoxville, Tennessee, three from Hawaii and two from Puerto Rico.

Melaleuca pays $5,000 on a five-year anniversary, $10,000 at 10 years, $15,000 at 15 years, $20,000 net (which is a total payment of $33,361) at 20 years, $25,000 at 25 years and $30,000 at 30 years.

In total, Melaleuca has paid $23 million since instituting the program in 2007. This bonus is for all full- and part-time employees, regardless of position or pay level, and an employee’s length of service is the only qualification.

This year, 28 employees received $25,000 checks; 16 received a $20,000 net check ($33,361); 27 received $15,000 checks; 88 received 10,000 checks; and 71 received $5,000 checks.

“I think it’s great that we’re going through life together, Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot said while handing out checks to the 25-year employees. It’s important to reward the people who have built Melaleuca, and this bonus serves as a token of our appreciation for their years of dedicated service.”

Melaleuca Celebrates the Holidays by Filling Pantries and Donating Toys

Press Release | 12/22/2013

After purchasing 12,500 pounds of food to help families in need, Melaleuca identified and assisted several families from Ashton to Pocatello who are suffering extreme hardship. Each family received a three-month supply of non-perishable food, 40 pounds of meat, along with new clothing and toys for the children. Melaleuca also donated more than 1,000 cans of food to help the Idaho Falls Soup Kitchen.

Melaleuca employees also helped Santa by generously purchasing new toys for 300 children who they adopted through The Salvation Army's Angel Giving Tree program. They donated new toys, books, video games, sporting equipment, gift certificates, art supplies, coats, snow boots, and other clothing for children ranging from infants to teenagers. Over the past six weeks, many employees in the Idaho Falls and Rexburg customer call centers opted to trade all or a portion of their incentive checks for presents going toward children who otherwise might not have had anything to open this Christmas.

Melaleuca has participated in The Salvation Army's Angel Giving Tree program for 12 years now. Salvation Army volunteers will wrap and distribute the gifts in the coming days.

"With the need greater than ever, we appreciate Melaleuca's significant charitable contributions and its steady commitment to improving the Idaho Falls community," the Salvation Army's Major James Halverson said. "We appreciate Melaleuca's mission of enhancing lives, which shows in its desire to help disadvantaged children smile a little brighter and receive a Christmas gift this year."

Melaleuca Reaches Sales Milestone

Npros.com | 12/21/2011

Melaleuca, which was founded 26 years ago, has almost 300,000 independent sales associates and employs over 3,000 people worldwide.

Melaleuca opens new facility in Knox County

Npros.com | 8/24/2010

"I suspect it is probably four or five new jobs immediately, but I am going to forecast probably 45 to 55 jobs a year at this facility," said Frank Vandersloot. "But that is long term as we grow. So over the next 10 years this will add over 500 jobs."

According to Vandersloot, The original Melaleuca facility had been used for production and distribution which will change when the new facility takes over distribution, allowing the old building to remain as a production plant. Once fully staffed, the new distribution center will make full use of the latest automated processes and allow the Knox County operation to triple its number of shipments to about 300,000 packages per month.

Melaleuca is a producer of cleaning supplies, nutritional supplements, and personal care products that distributes its products via its associates whom function as direct marketers. Associates make a profit by signing up customers and earning bonuses on products those customers purchase.

When Melaleuca came to Knoxville 17 years ago, the company was looking for an East coast-based location to serve as its manufacturing and distribution center, however its first choice was not Knoxville according to Vandersloot.

Research led the company to buying and hiring workers in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., however, few people applied for the jobs and of those that did, few performed well. It was decided to move operations elsewhere, Vandersloot said.

Initially, the Knoxville Chamber began recruiting Melaleuca, but faced the hurdle of the company's reluctance to commit to a community unless it felt sure the needs of its workforce would be met. The organization persuaded Melaleuca to run blind newspaper ads offering jobs in Knoxville to see what happened.

"We needed to show them that we could get the employees because that was their biggest concern," said, Rhonda Rice, executive vice president of the Knoxville Chamber.

Melaleuca Wins Court Ruling

Press Release | 5/17/2010

"Fortunately, this litigation has not had any impact at all on our business. Nobody ever wants to be sued and this is a very unfortunate reason that this ever came about in the first place. But we wish this former employee, Jeff Wasden well, he did a good job for us; the judge decided in our favor and we wish him well, but as far as Melaleuca's business goes, it's business as usual," Vandersloot tells Eyewitness News.

Melaleuca Wins Ruling Against Defamation Claim

Npros.com | 5/16/2010

Wasden had filed suit claiming that Melaleuce slandered his name.

CEO Frank Vandersloot commented that the litigation had no impact on Meleleuca's business.

Melaleuca Dumps Old Vitamins

Npros.com | 1/20/2010

Filling almost twelve dump trucks, the 10.4 million dollars worth of inventory was disposed of after Melaleuca clamined to have come up with a better way to allow vitamins to be absorbed into the body.

CEO Frank Vandersloot said, "...once you know you've got a better product, you ought to get rid of the old and move to the new."

While watching the dumping of the inventory, VanderSloot stated, "it is really painful to plow under 10-million dollars worth of product, but it's really exciting to know where we are going, that we've really got products that will do the people a lot more good than the products they've been using for the last 50 years in nutritional supplements. So it's painful to do this, but I'm really excited about the future for us and for people in general, for humankind."

Max International Blocked from Recruiting Melaleuca Employees

Npros.com | 1/14/2010

Melaleuca sells hundreds of household products such as vitamins, detergents, candles and hygiene products and employs over 3,000 people. In 2008 the company generated close to $900 million in profits in addition to employee commissions.

Max International contended that while it isn't contractually obligated to Melaleuca, it never lead any of its associates to recruiting events and also argued that those the Idaho-based company had accused were independent contractors and not employed by Max International.

After making it clear that Melaleuca would suffer "devastating" and irreparable harm if the allegations against Max are true, Judge Downes wrote: "Intrinsic to the success of the direct-marketing business model is the network of customers each Marketing Executive builds.". He also stated that "Should Max be shown to have recruited top-selling members of these networks, they will undoubtedly take the lower-level branches with them when they depart Melaleuca." and finished by explaining that if the Utah company isn't recruiting Melaleuca employees, then it can suffer no harm from being barred from doing so in the future.

Former Melaleuca employee ordered to pay back 240K

Npros.com | 1/10/2010

The ruling was made by a state judge after Mr. Wasden was found in violation of the 2006 agreement for having made written statements that were critical of company president VanderSloot, and was to receive over $300,000 for agreeing not to make any negative statements about the company, its policies, products, ideals or employees.

Wasden allegedly sent e-mails, a letter, and a statement to the Idaho Legislature describing VanderSloot, as well as his methods as being hypocritical, while also claiming that his management tactics were based on fear and intimidation.

Despite Wasden's rejection of the verdict, judge Greg Moeller conferred that any validity to his appeal was void based on the fact that Greg Wasden violated an agreement.

Melaleuca Sues Max International

Npros.com | 12/4/2009

According to the Idaho Business Review:

Idaho health and home products company Melaleuca Inc. accuses a Utah company of raiding some of its top sales staff, infringing on company trade secrets and competing unfairly.

Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca filed a lawsuit in federal court Nov. 16 against Max International, its top sales executive and dozens of former Melaleuca sales executives.

The complaint seeks more than $10 million in damages and asks a judge to issue an injunction that would stop future sales staff raids. The lawsuit also seeks to cancel a meeting scheduled for Nov. 21 that’s described as another attempt by Max International to lure away top Melaleuca sales talent and their customer data …

The lawsuit accuses Max of attracting at least eight of Melaleuca’s best sales staff in the last year and encouraging each to recruit Melaleuca customers, sales staff and others …

The lawsuit accuses Max of luring Melaleuca sales staff with lucrative payments and using information from those Melaleuca business reports, causing former Melaleuca employees to violate noncompete agreements that are designed to prevent workers from using inside knowledge to benefit a direct competitor.

The lawsuit accuses Max of attracting at least eight of Melaleuca’s best sales staff in the last year and encouraging each to recruit Melaleuca customers, sales staff and others.

Melaleuca is asking for a jury trial and for a judge to issue a restraining order barring Max from recruiting more Melaleuca sales staff. It also seeks a restraining order on a sales presentation planned by Max on Nov. 21 in Atlanta because it “promises to be another unlawful raid of Melaleuca marketing executives.”

Melaleuca Gives Employees Longevity Payments

KTVB | 11/16/2009

The Post Register reports that the company says it gave the longevity checks to 126 employees who reached milestones of continuous employment during its annual meeting Thursday.

The company employs about 3,400 workers worldwide. It sells powdered drinks, lotions, detergent, shampoos and other household products.

Melaleuca in the Caspar Star Tribune

Casper Star-Tribune Online | 11/16/2009

Melaleuca Expansion in the Idaho News

Npros.com | 9/3/2009

I have here with me Chief Administer Officer Jan Nielsen, tell me what is so unique about this facility.

"anybody can come and tour this facility at any time and if you do you will see state of the art order induction system, so as a call is taken from our call centers, it comes straight over to this facility, it's box is selected as its precise size and the bar code is established on it so that the order can come straight down. There is significant IT here. We can ship up to 30-thousand boxes a day and this facility employees several hundred workers so that we can service customers all through out the United States and Canada," says Nielsen.

Groundbreaking for Melaleuca Expansion

Knoxville News Sentinel | 8/27/2009

The new 231,000-square-foot distribution center at 5301 National Drive will have five incoming and 11 outgoing docks and additional docks could be added, according to a press release from the Knoxville Chamber.

Based in Idaho Falls, Idaho, privately-owned Melaleuca has about 480 Knoxville employees, according to the 2009 News Sentinel Book of Lists.

Melaleuca Issues Voluntary Recall on Peanut Products

Press Release | 2/17/2009

Melaleuca has always taken seriously its responsibility to safeguard its products against contamination from bacteria such as Salmonella. Salmonella is not to be taken lightly. Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. It can cause flu like symptoms in healthy people. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections ( i.e., infected aneurysms ), endocarditis and arthritis.

Melaleuca Recall in the Charleston Daily Mail

Daily Mail | 2/14/2009

The recall includes chocolate peanut butter flavored ProFlex15 protein bars in lot numbers F7052, F7062, I7002, and I7012 and ProFlex20 protein bars in lot numbers F7082P and F7092P.

Melaleuca Moves Into New Building

LocalNews8.com | 2/4/2009

The company leaders think a big reason they're doing so well is because of the way they advertise.

Melaluca CEO Frank Vandersloot said, "You can't say much in a 30 second spot but when your friend, or mother, or family member, someone you trust comes and tells you this product is really good, it's really good. We think that's the way to get the word out and that puts a lot of pressure on us to have good products. People wouldn't say good things about them if they weren't good."

Melaleuca Reports Record Sales

KPVI-TV | 2/4/2009

The Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors held a ribbon cutting Monday, welcoming Melaleuca's product store to its new location on Broadway, just a block away from its old location. Idaho Falls Mayor Jared Fuhriman thanked Vandersloot for keeping his store in the downtown area and thanked him for his continual support to the city.

Vandersloot said the look of this new store is similar to ones in other countries like Taiwan, where the Melaleuca products are popular. He said the Idaho Falls location needed to expand to assist the growing number of Idaho customers get what they need from cleaning supplies to beauty products.

Melaleuca in the Seattle Weekly

Seattle Weekly | 11/28/2007

But the ad wasn't for a product, service or cohousing community; it was offering the chance to, yes, build your own home-based business.

Multilevel marketing—the pyramidlike (but only like!) business model made famous by Amway and Mary Kay—has, inevitably, gone green. Melaleuca, a household-products company based in Idaho (named for the plant from which tea tree oil is derived) is actively recruiting in the Puget Sound area.