Who Really Owns Seventh Generation?

What This Means for You

Seventh Generation was a genuine indie brand for nearly 30 years. Founded in Vermont in 1988, it became the face of the natural cleaning movement. Then Unilever wrote a $700 million check, and all of that independence ended.

Unilever is a $60 billion multinational corporation. They own over 400 brands including Dove, Axe, Hellmann's, Ben & Jerry's, Vaseline, and Lipton. Their portfolio strategy is to own brands across every price point and ideology — from Axe body spray to Seventh Generation plant-based cleaner. They don't care which one you buy, as long as you're buying from them.

The B Corp certification is real but misleading. B Corp certifies the individual subsidiary, not the parent company. Seventh Generation passes B Corp standards. Unilever as a whole would not. You're supporting a certified subsidiary of an uncertified multinational — and the profits flow upward.

Seventh Generation still makes decent products. The formulas are still better than conventional cleaners. But "better than Lysol" is a low bar. Truly independent brands like Branch Basics, Force of Nature, and Meliora achieve higher ingredient standards precisely because they don't answer to corporate profit targets.

The most telling detail: Unilever has since acquired Schmidt's, SheaMoisture, Dr. Squatch, Paula's Choice, Tatcha, and Living Proof. Seventh Generation wasn't a one-off purchase — it was the beginning of a systematic strategy to own the entire "natural" product aisle.