So today I went shopping...

And I got myself this container of multi-vitamin capsules from Costco. Not a special brand, not a marketed wonder product, just a bog-standard "does what it says on the tin" multi-vitamin.

You may recall a post I made last month assessing the value of JP's fruit and vegetable capsules. You know, the products Jenny and other distributors market as being wonder products capable of helping people lose weight, fight diseases and have bags of energy.

In this post I am going to compare three different criteria between my multi-vitamins and JP's fruit and veg capsules. They will be price, quantity and quality.

1) Price

Jenny charges a combination of fruit and veg capsules for £37.75 per month for a total of four months. This amounts to £151. The product I bought cost £14.14.

That is a colossal difference of £136.86. Multi-vitamin wins this round in a similar way to Floyd Mayweather winning a boxing match by just breathing on his opponent - it's that embarrassing.

2) Quantity.

So, the pressure's on JP. They have to justify a huge financial gulf with quality and quantity. Quantity is up next.

Jenny's fruit and veg combo deal: 240 capsules. The recommended dosage can be one of the following: two of each a day, as the product labels recommend, or one of each a day. Depending on which method you pick these capsules either run out in 60 days or 120 days. I am going to be nice and assume that this deal is meant to  last customers the whole four months with one of each capsule a day.

Now the multi-vitamin. How many tablets do I get? 500. Recommended dose? One a day. This means, obviously, that I will not need to buy another container for well over a year. If I were to stick with a strict one-a-day routine then I won't need to purchase another container until May 2017.

That is a substantial gap of 260 capsules. By the time a JP customer finishes taking their 240 capsules in 120 days, I'll still have 380 of mine remaining.

So far, my multi-vitamins are 2-0 up. Can JP dramatically come back with product quality?

JP capsules, as I discussed in my post, contain only four vitamins: A, E, C and folic acid. It doesn't matter whether you take the fruit or veg capsules - that's all they contain. The only difference is the level of each vitamin you receive from them.

Compare this to the contents of my bog-standard multi-vitamin:

First, apologies for the quality - my phone camera is cracked, so I have to take funky pictures using the selfie lense.

To make the contents clearer these tablets contain:

Vitamins A, D, E, C, B1, B2, Niacin, B6, folic acid, B12, biotin, pantothenic acid, K, calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium, zinc, iodine, chromium, copper, manganese, molybdenum and selenium. Yes, I haven't heard of half of those either.

JP capsules contain four vitamins. That's it. My bog-standard cheap ass tablets contain 24. 

And I don't want to stop there. I want to compare the volumes of the vitamins in the respective products too.

In a daily one-veg-one-fruit capsule dose, a customer of Jenny's receives 30.5% of the daily recommended intake (DRI) for vitamin A.

For vitamin E, they receive 50% DRI.

Vitamin C, 79% DRI.

Folic acid, 94%.

Only folic acid gives the customer anywhere near the max needed in a daily dose. Vitamins A and E don't even give more than half.

Compared to a one-a-day tablet of mine I get 84% of my RDI for vitamin A, 83% for vitamin E, 75% for vitamin C and bang on 100% RDI for folic acid.

Again, my cheap, bog-standard, average supermarket multi-vitamin mops the floor with JP capsules.

In every assessment I just made, my multi-vitamin outshone JP at embarrassing levels. It demonstrates that JP's capsules are vastly overpriced and vastly overrated. Why spend £151 for a four months supply of four vitamins when you can get way more for just over 9% of the cost by just buying multi-vitamins? The mind wonders.

On a final note, it is worth a serious reminder that some distributors, like Jenny, massively overstate the benefits of JP products. They claim the products help lose weight. They claim the products help with pregnancy/conception. They claim the products can help with diseases like Crohns and diabetes. I have even read reviews of people who attended distributor events who implied - key word, implied - that JP products help fight cancer. This is simply bunk and dangerous marketing.

The fact of the matter is if JP products really do have the power to fight these diseases and lose weight, then I should basically be Superman by just taking these tablets. But I will still get sick, I will still have ill days, I will still put on weight if I live on junk.

I cannot emphasise it enough. Before purchasing from someone like Jenny, ask them for their own, direct knowledge of the product. Check the contents of the products. Compare them to others. Quite simply, do your homework and don't be misled by salespeople who only care about making a quick buck.

Try before you Buy...

... or, buy before you try.

I don't think Jenny quite gets how trials are meant to work, or at least entice people into doing trials at all.

Jenny has this weird idea of trials being a reduced quantity of the product with a price that is still, in comparison, over-priced. I have already shown that based on Jenny's quantity and pricing structure for JP products, customers won't even receive enough capsules to last for the four months they pay for. That's already a rip-off.

Who, honestly, want to pay £20 for a trial of shakes? How much do you get? How much does it last? How long are you supposed to take these shakes before you supposedly see a difference in your weight/general health? Jenny doesn't say.

But remember: this is a "senior direct distributor" at work here. This is her business and Jenny will be motivated to reach that six figure income within two years as previously claimed. Somehow. Someday. Maybe that includes inflation? Who knows.

Paint me shocked but don't expect to see Jenny on Dragons Den any time soon.

Some Clarity on My Blog

I recently noticed someone left a comment on my post regarding Jenny's JP promotions involving other distributors. The person was concerned with my fact finding regarding Clara and warned me that this could be interpreted as slander, and therefore, unlawful.

I believe I need to clarify a few things about my blog:

1) This is my place to express my views on an issue that matters to me. I passionately believe that more needs to be done to educate people on health and diet, and believe that people like Jenny, who may have good intentions, simply do not help through promotions like JP.

My official opinion on JP is not that their products cannot help with healthy lifestyle changes, I appreciate that they potentially can. I also accept that, in the eyes of the law, their business model is legitimate.

My opinions is that their products, compared to others on the market, are overpriced and overated. This opinion is backed up by critiques of people more knowledgeable in the world of supplements than I am.   My argument is that you can get more value for money by simply buying a basic supermarket multi-vitamin or just eating fruit and vegetables.

I also dispute JP's business model and the effect it has on people like Jenny. Again, I accept that what they do is entirely legal, but that does not mean I have to agree with it. I believe their business model is highly unethical.

2)  Other than when I believe I need to provide sources for factual claims (i.e. the nutritional information in JP products or fruit and veg, or linking poor mental health to obesity), I am very mindful about making statements about Jenny or other people which may indeed be slanderous. I welcome all criticism and will willingly retract any statement that, unintentionally, is slanderous in the eyes of a qualified legal practitioner. 

Most, if not all posts, stem from Jenny's own content on her distributor page.

3) As previously mentioned, I strive to ensure that Jenny's real identity is kept confidential. I would never condone people to contact her to harass her or directly try to affect her business. That also goes for other people I have mentioned on this blog.

It is annoying that in this era people are quick to mention lawsuits if they read something they don't like the sound of. If I have made outright factual inaccuracies, I will apologise and gladly remove them from my blog. But I will not buckle down if it means silencing my right to express my own views. 

This blog is not unique; there are other blogs, far more detailed than mine, far more critical than mine, on JP, its products, its distributors and its business model. If my blog has any hint of slander, then it looks like court rooms across the West are going to be chock-a-bloc with cases.

If anybody has an issue with specific content on my blog then message me, highlighting the specific post and content, and I will happily discuss it with you.

Jenny the "Senior Direct Distributor"

In recent weeks I kept putting off posting due to generally getting fatigued with Jenny's stupidity along with other things in life getting in the way. She has posted a number of typically moronic stuff, but tonight I decided to pick just one to talk about - and that is Jenny's apparent motivation to work her way up the JP ladder of success and big money.

 

Does anybody remember these? This was a UK promotion run by Kelloggs when the Simpsons was all over channel 4 and Sky TV. These were squirt rings that you got in cereal boxes; for kids, these were nifty little waterguns, whereas for parents and teachers they were little nightmares.

Jenny is apparently a "senior direct distributor" for JP. The next step? Sales co-ordinator. What is the difference? Do they get paid differently? How do you earn the promotion at all? Funnily enough, Jenny doesn't say.

I am sure you already know where I am going with this. These job titles are like cheap little squirt rings you get from cereal. They're not achievements, they're not earned, they're not unique. If I joined JP I have no doubt that I too would be a "senior direct distributor" after a couple of months of mediocre sales. As far as JP are concerned it is all about keeping the charade going so that people like Jenny believe they are well on their way to success.

And then you ask to look at the balance sheet. And then you realise Jenny makes hardly any money from this business. But it doesn't matter because she has a nifty new job title.

Also, in a previous post I wrongly said that the Birmingham JP convention is in April - that is false. It is actually this upcoming weekend in late February. Jenny has said nothing about the convention since the turn of the year - has the financial reality hit her? Possibly. We await with bated breath to see if Jenny spends hundreds of pounds of her own money to hear from the people she's paying how to make hundreds of pounds of money.

But hey, at least she got a Simpsons watergun out of it.