Bethenny Frankel finds herself on the receiving end of some negative publicity today after her Skinnygirl drinkline was yanked from the Whole Foods supermarket chain.
The reason? Apparently some of the supposed “natural” ingredients in the Bethenny Ever After star’s drinkline were discovered to be not so natural. “There are no ingredients listed on the bottle,” one nutritionist tells the Huffington Post.
“Bethenny has been promoting the drink on and off-camera for years [as] full of ‘natural flavors, lightly sweetened with agave nectar and made with premium Blue Agave clear tequila,’ but that’s about all we know about its ingredients,” the nutritionist states. A store worker adds, “The store prides itself in selling the best quality whole products that our high-end consumers expect. Not novelty products that are shaded with secrecy.”
A Whole Foods employee in Michigan also confirmed the news to TMZ. The employee states the products were briefly sold at his store while confirming the line was recently pulled because “it was learned the ingredients are not natural.” Yikes.
Neither Bethenny nor the Whole Foods chain have yet to comment on this issue. No word yet on how big a blow this will be to the Skinnygirl cocktail empire. As reported, Bethenny sold the drink line earlier this year for a reported $100 million when counting the incentives and payouts — which are likely contingent on the line’s continued success.
TELL US – THOUGHTS? DO YOU THINK THIS WILL HAVE A BIG IMPACT ON THE DRINKLINE? HAVE YOU TRIED THE SKINNYGIRL COCKTAILS BEFORE?
UPDATE – The Absurdtosublime blog reports they were told the products were yanked because of an unnatural ingredient that was found: caramel color. The site adds that the bottle does indeed read “made with blue agave tequila with natural flavors and caramel color added.” The site however points out that a number of items in the Whole Foods stores, such as frozen foods, contain one “unnatural” ingredient or two.
UPDATE #2 – Beam, the company that owns the Skinnygirl line, tells TMZ Whole Foods never “pulled” the product, but simply decided not to reorder. Uh uh. The company adds that the “Skinnygirl Margarita contains very low levels of sodium benzoate (a preservative) so it can stay on the shelves.”
