Who Really Owns Your 'Natural' Cleaning Products?

The Duopoly You Didn't Know About

Here's the corporate family tree that the branding departments would rather you didn't see:

SC Johnson — the privately held, $13 billion company headquartered in Racine, Wisconsin — owns Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day (acquired 2008), Method (acquired 2012), Ecover (acquired 2017), and Babyganics (acquired 2016).

Unilever — the $60 billion Anglo-Dutch multinational — owns Seventh Generation (acquired September 2016 for $700 million).

That's it. Five of the most recognizable "natural" cleaning brands in America, owned by two corporations. If you've ever switched from Mrs. Meyer's to Method because you wanted to "try something different," you were moving money from one SC Johnson subsidiary to another. If you moved to Ecover thinking it was a European indie brand? Same company. Same headquarters. Same corporate parent that also makes Raid, Windex, Glade, OFF!, Pledge, and Scrubbing Bubbles.

SC Johnson: The Bug Spray Company That Bought the Green Aisle

SC Johnson is a fifth-generation family business. The Johnson family has run it since 1886. They make their real money the old-fashioned way: selling conventional chemical products to hundreds of millions of households worldwide. Here's what else is in the SC Johnson portfolio:

• Raid — insecticide sprays, foggers, and ant bait
• OFF! — DEET-based insect repellent
• Windex — glass cleaner with ammonia
• Glade — synthetic fragrance air fresheners and plug-ins
• Scrubbing Bubbles — bathroom cleaner
• Pledge — furniture polish
• Mr Muscle — heavy-duty cleaner
• Ziploc — plastic bags and containers

Now read that list again. Then look at your Mrs. Meyer's lavender dish soap. Same company. The brand named after someone's mother is manufactured by the same corporation that makes Raid Ant & Roach Killer.

SC Johnson didn't build these natural brands. They bought them — one by one, over the course of a decade — to capture a market segment they couldn't reach with their existing portfolio. Consumers who would never buy Windex started buying Method. Families who avoided Glade plug-ins bought Mrs. Meyer's room sprays. The money all flows to the same place.

The Acquisition Timeline

2008: SC Johnson acquires Caldrea Co., the parent company of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day. Monica Nassif had founded Mrs. Meyer's in 2001, naming it after her mother Thelma Meyer. Seven years later, the garden-inspired cleaning brand — known for its lavender dish soap and folksy branding — became a subsidiary of one of the largest chemical companies in the world. Financial terms were not disclosed.

2012: SC Johnson acquires Method Products. Founded in 2001 by Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan in their San Francisco apartment, Method was the design-forward, minimalist alternative to traditional cleaners. The teardrop-shaped bottles and non-toxic formulas had built a loyal following. SC Johnson bought both Method and its European counterpart Ecover, merging them into a single subsidiary.

2016: SC Johnson acquires Babyganics, the baby-focused cleaning and personal care brand. Parents who were specifically seeking out gentler, "safer" alternatives for their children were now buying from the company behind Raid. The irony writes itself.

2017: The Method-Ecover merger is completed and fully integrated into SC Johnson's operations. Ecover, the Belgian brand founded in 1980 that pioneered plant-based cleaning in Europe, is now just another line in SC Johnson's portfolio. Three decades of green credibility, acquired.

Unilever: Seventh Generation's $700 Million Exit

Seventh Generation's story is different in one important way: we know exactly what it cost.

In September 2016, Unilever acquired Seventh Generation for approximately $700 million. The Vermont-based brand, founded in 1988, had spent nearly three decades building credibility in the natural cleaning space. Its name referenced the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy — the principle that decisions should consider their impact seven generations into the future.

Unilever's portfolio tells you everything about the acquirer's priorities. Alongside Seventh Generation, Unilever sells Dove, Axe, Vaseline, Hellmann's, Ben & Jerry's, and TRESemme — plus dozens of other brands across every consumer category imaginable. They do approximately $60 billion in annual revenue. Seventh Generation is a rounding error on their balance sheet.

Co-founder Jeffrey Hollender had already been pushed out of the company in 2010, six years before the Unilever sale. By the time the acquisition closed, the original leadership was long gone. Unilever kept the Vermont headquarters, kept the brand name, kept the Iroquois-inspired story. They just changed who cashes the checks.

What Happens After the Acquisition

The playbook is remarkably consistent across all five brands. Here's what typically changes — and what doesn't — when a conglomerate buys a "natural" brand:

What stays the same

• The branding — logos, color palettes, brand voice, and packaging design are almost always preserved. The indie aesthetic is the whole point of the acquisition.
• The shelf placement — the products stay in the "natural" section, physically separated from the parent company's conventional products.
• The social media presence — separate Instagram accounts, separate marketing teams, separate brand stories.

What changes

• Formulations evolve quietly — ingredient lists shift over time. Cheaper preservatives replace expensive ones. Synthetic fragrances may replace or augment natural ones. The changes happen gradually enough that most consumers don't notice.
• Sourcing decisions — when supply chain cost pressures hit (and they always do), a corporate parent optimizes for margin, not for ingredient purity. That organic lavender oil from a French farm becomes a cheaper botanical extract from a global supplier.
• Manufacturing consolidation — production moves to larger facilities, often shared with conventional products. The small-batch story becomes marketing copy.
• Executive leadership — founders leave within 2-5 years. The people who cared about the mission are replaced by brand managers who care about quarterly targets.
• Pricing strategy — prices tend to increase as the parent company captures the premium consumers are willing to pay for "natural" products.

Why This Matters

You might be thinking: "So what? If the products still work and the ingredients are still decent, why does ownership matter?"

Fair question. Here's our answer:

Your money funds the parent company's entire portfolio. When you buy Mrs. Meyer's dish soap, SC Johnson uses that revenue to fund marketing for Raid, to lobby against stricter chemical regulations, and to expand their conventional product lines. You cannot financially support Mrs. Meyer's without financially supporting SC Johnson's entire operation.

Conglomerates make decisions based on shareholder returns, not health. An independent brand can choose to use expensive organic ingredients because the founder believes in them. A subsidiary of a $13 billion company uses whatever ingredients maximize the gap between production cost and retail price. Those are fundamentally different decision-making frameworks.

The "competition" is fake. When you see Mrs. Meyer's, Method, and Ecover on the same shelf, it looks like you have choices. You don't. You're choosing between three brands that all report to the same corporate headquarters. That's not a market — it's a monopoly wearing three different hats.

Independent brands can't compete when the shelf is rigged. SC Johnson's distribution relationships, retail buyer connections, and marketing budgets make it nearly impossible for truly independent cleaning brands to get equivalent shelf space. Your purchasing choices either reinforce the duopoly or challenge it.