China’s Bright Food Group Co is near a deal to buy U.S. vitamin retailer GNC Holdings Inc, giving the well-known foreign brand a potential entry to China to cater to the country’s growing middle class.

Under the deal being discussed, Bright Food would purchase GNC for $2.5 billion to $3 billion, a source familiar with the situation said late on Monday in the United States.

via China’s Bright Food close to GNC deal: source – Yahoo! News.

It sounds as though the idea behind this merger is to market the U.S. supplements in mainland China (the PRC). I have no problem with that. My main concern is that they may begin to switch more and more to using Chinese ingredients and suppliers for internationally marketed product.

GNC does not hold a position of great esteem among my naturopath and herbalist friends, and I have not done much business (if any) with the company. I don’t know what sources they use for product ingredients at this time to be able to say whether or not they will or could change.

I know what the water looks like that is used to irrigate fields here in China and I’ve seen the results of unscrupulous factories dumping their waste into the rivers. I’ve seen the lack of concern by the Chinese about where they are willing to urinate and defecate and I’ve smelled the open sewers (supposedly storm drains) which frequently drain into the rivers. I would think long and hard before buying any food produced in China (if I had a choice). Just sayin’….

winner-winner, chicken dinner 🙂