Holland & Barrett

Holland & Barrett is the biggest chain of health food shops in the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. It has a beans and sandals image despite being part of a private equity firm L1 Retail, which is owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman.[1]

Potentially edible!
Food woo
Fabulous food!
Delectable diets!
Bodacious bods!
v - t - e

Products and services

Among the items found on their shelves are:

The BBC investigated Holland & Barrett's in-store food allergy testing. They found the results varied widely from shop to shop; an undercover reporter was told he was sensitive to dozens of foods.[6]

Politics

The company took part in the government's ill-fated Workfair program, which forced benefit claimants to work for free at their shops. The company withdrew after pickets and bad publicity.

MP David Tredinnick is known as The honourable Member for Holland and Barrett for his support of homoeopathy.[7]

Marketing

Fittingly, Holland & Barrett employ a company called Woo to do their instore marketing.[8]

They also have a long-running offer where if you buy 2 products, the cheaper costs one penny. This accurately reflects the value of most of their products.

Corporate

The firm was founded by Alfred Slapps Barrett and Major William Holland in 1870 in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, selling clothes and groceries.[9] It only gradually moved into the "health food" and woo market, passing through a variety of corporate parents. In 1970 it was bought by the cash and carry firm Booker, who united it with their Heath and Heather tea shops. Healthcare group LloydsPharmacy bought it in 1992, and in 1997 ownership passed to Nature's Bounty Co (NBTY).[9] In 2010, NBTY was bought by The Carlyle Group, a private equity group with major investments in defence and links to George H. W. Bush. In 2017, Carlyle sold Holland & Barrett to L1 Retail, a subdivision of LetterOne, which is owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman (although headquartered in Luxembourg).[1][10] It was LetterOne's first major retail acquisition; they also have extensive stakes in the oil and gas industry through subsidiary L1 Energy, including ownership of German oil and gas company DEA AG, and hold a significant stake in internet taxicab firm Uber.[11][12][13]

gollark: I mean, cheap zero-carbon-dioxide power wouldn't fix EVERYTHING, but it would solve many of the climate-change-y issues we have, more so over time as many of the solutions to things require plentiful electricity.
gollark: Environmental damage is partly a fixable technical problem and partly a social one, because people are SILLY DODECAHEDRA who will not accept the obvious solution (to some things) of nuclear power. I'm also not convinced that reverting to horrible premodern living standards would *reduce* depression.
gollark: Hmm, this is quite long.
gollark: Buy vast tracts of land in a random third world country, become anarchoprimitivism, ???, profit.
gollark: You can also, well, buy land and grow food there, if you really want. My family has a small food-growing garden in our, er, garden.

References
  1. Holland & Barrett sold to Russian billionaire for £1.8bn, Press Association/The Guardian, 26 June 2017
  2. http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/holland-barrett-copper-bracelet-60089710
  3. http://www.bite-back.com/victories/holland-barrett/
  4. http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/holland-barrett-horny-goat-weed-60027896
  5. https://www.hollandandbarrett.es/en/2531-kosher
  6. http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/south/series2/food_sensitivity_allergy_vega_tests.shtml
  7. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/astrologyloving-mp-david-tredinnick-convinced-practise-can-reduce-strain-on-nhs-9629150.html
  8. http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/855191/holland---barrett-fresh-ad-strategy
  9. See the Wikipedia article on Holland & Barrett.
  10. Mikhail M Fridman, Bloomberg Billionaires Index, accessed 14 May 2018
  11. See the Wikipedia article on LetterOne.
  12. See the Wikipedia article on DEA AG.
  13. Fridman's L1 Retail to buy Holland & Barrett for $2.3 billion, Reuters, 26 June 2017.
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