Drugs, CIA-Sponsored Revolts, and Extraterrestrial Lube: The Scandalous Origins of Household Brands
Behind the smiling logos hide stories that would make a secret agent blush.
The backstories behind household brands can be a funny thing. FedEx once wagered their entire global assets on a hand of blackjack to keep the lights on for a week, Chiquita Bananas was founded by the CIA to overthrow the government of Guatemala, NASA invented that slippery nighttime stuff that you swear you “don’t know where that came from”, and Bayer Pharmaceuticals became the Wish.com of smack.
We already know the big fish — Volkswagen and Chanel were born from German horrors, diabetes-superpower Coca-Cola gave Miami its first taste of “snow”, Marlboro sold cigarettes for healthy newborn babies, and Nestlé w̶a̶s is still proud sponsor of child labor. But there are these little hidden gems, these stories that we talk about less, which deserve to be known. Yes, readers, the world of brands is worse than you thought.
1: The Fruit d’État: Chiquita Bananas
We start with a bang, like the kind that involves overthrowing a third world government.
Chiquita, formerly known as the United Fruit Company, were the charming entrepreneurs from the beginning of the 20th century. They didn’t just sell fruit, they sold hostile government takeovers to the US government as a package deal with a free trial of X-finity Plus. In Guatemala, these guys controlled more land than Joel Oosteen’s Roman gladiator amphitheater house of worship. And they were as glued to the government as mussels to a rock.
In Guatemala, President Jacobo Árbenz had the audacity to strive for giving his people a better quality of life by redistributing land. But United Fruit, like the kid who refused to share in kindergarten, decided that this was unacceptable, and ran to Daddy CIA shouting “commie commie, traitor to our country!” The US, who is always ready for a good old destabilization campaign, launched Operation PBSUCCESS, a literal coup d’état in 1954 thanks to the discreet but oh-so-effective help of the feds, shipping Árbenz off to exile like an overnight impulse Amazon order, and replacing him with Carlos Castillo Armas. Guatemala? Plunged into a spiral of violence and political instability. Oh and what about United Fruit? Their appetite for chaos was just getting started.
Fast-forward to 1928, their “union-busting” approach to a worker’s strike was the “Banana Massacre”, (no, that’s not a joke, that’s literally what it was called), killing up to 3,000 people. And 70 years later, Chiquita (the new name for United Fruit, the inspiration for Facebook changing their name to Meta under the smell of scandal), celebrated their heritage by showering 1.7 million USD to violent paramilitary forces in Colombia, because, why not? The banana trade, apparently, is serious—so much in fact, that the event coined our favorite overused phrase and overpriced fast-fashion brand, banana republic.
In 2007, Chiquita was caught red-handed financing literal terrorism and fined $25 million by an American court. But don’t worry, Chiquita Bananas is still here, happily influencing politics and society in the tropics. The little story behind your morning banana makes you want to switch to a slice of pineapple, right? Too bad, Chiquita owns them too.
2. From walking on the moon to stumbling in the darkness: NASA invents butt lube
Brightening the mood and dimming the lights, let’s talk about how NASA brought us Astroglide, you know, that word you murmur when you’re ready to “try something new”.
Yes, you read that right. Created in 1977 by an aerospace chemist for the “needs” (?) of astronauts, the product quickly found a much more terrestrial, and intimate use. The Astroglide formula is a bit like Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe, but for galactic antics. More than 99% organic and natural, the formula is in fact so healthy you could probably mistake it for your morning smoothie. Toxic-free and water-based, it perfectly mimics natural body fluids and maintains its lubricating properties for hours (though you probably already know that), without becoming sticky or grainy. Basically, it’s the holy grail of lubricants, trusted by consumers, astronauts, and probably even aliens.
But the funny thing is that NASA doesn’t seem to want to take credit for this discovery. The NASA website: “Astroglide? Never heard of it.” But of course, the Internet, this great history book, never forgets these juicy little details. Born in the stars and offering an out-of-this-world evening, you have a piece of space history on your hands and in your.. You know what, let’s make this one short and just move on.
3: Smack-dab out of the meth lab: Bayer blesses us with tar
Yep, from sex to drugs without transition: Bayer, pharmaceutical virtuosos, proved in 1897 that there’s only one step between a miracle and a curse.
Now, it’s an open secret that Big Pharma, fast-food moguls, and Uncle Sam are like the three musketeers of global health havoc — using the general populace as their personal petri dishes in their grand experiment of profit over welfare; if anyone dies it’s collateral damage, and in the end you can just brand the results as a “medical breakthrough!”
Enter Felix Hoffmann, Bayer’s star chemist, would probably write his LinkedIn headline as “Chemist, medical virtuoso, success-driven entrepreneur, scientific pioneer, the alpha and omega, the beginning and end, the creator and destroyer of lives”. In a single fortnight, he brought us Aspirin and heroin. This guy achieved the feat of creating fever-reducers and population-reducers in the span of two weeks.
Straight out of the University of Munich, Hoffman joined Bayer and treated molecules like a game of Tetris. His goal was apparently to make things less toxic. Somehow his mishap on the journey to creating codeine synthesized heroin, making quite a few people happy (in certain) circles. And Bayer, always ready to sniff out an opportunity, began selling this “new wonder” for anything and everything. Naturally, when the world realized that heroin was mildly (read: “extremely”) addictive, it was banned in the 1930s.
But, a few additional chemical makeovers also lead to Aspirin and its worldwide success, giving Hoffmann the chance to retire in 1928 and live a peaceful life in Switzerland, watching the fruits of his labor become the defining characteristic of both rock concerts and Sunday morning sermons. But hey, at least those fruits weren’t bananas.
Bayer maintained patent exclusivity until 1917, making sure they had everyone covered from from pain to stoned, combining the best and worst of pharmacy into a single stroke of genius.
4: Sex Cult-ery: Oneida Silverware
Hey, what if we talked about sex again? Because granny’s silver service comes straight from a worse-than-Waco situation… and that’s not a joke.
Oneida Limited, the kitchen icons of the spoon and the knife, started their empire in a… let’s say, rather spicy setting. Behind every polished fork and spoon is the shadow of their religious sex cult, concocted by the charismatic John Humphrey Noyes in the 19th century. New York was in the midst of a religious revival, and the flagship concept of the Oneida Community? The “Christian Perfectionism” version of “complex marriage”, a system where everyone is married to everyone else, and swapping partners is more common than changing socks.
But our literal brainwashing monarch wasn’t just frolicking in the bushes. He had a business acumen and embarked on lucrative ventures like the production of silk, canned goods and, of course, silver cutlery. And with the onset of legal trouble and criticism from the local church, Noyes took his cult clans and cheek claps to Canada in 1879. The community eventually disbanded, but the members kept the kitchenware part alive, which is still active today, although the production has been relocated outside the United States. Come to think of it, that’s not anymore comforting to hear either, right?
Oh and two additional spoonfuls of madness: their mansion in New York is now a historic site, and Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President James Garfield, was a prominent member of the Oneida Community.
5: When Assembling Your Furniture Becomes More Ironic Than Expected: Ikea’s Forced Soviet Labor Camps
IKEA, the paradise of flat-pack furniture, has been caught up in a story that would almost make the assembly instructions for a PAX wardrobe seem like a fairy tale.
Imagine: political prisoners in East Germany, lovingly (or not) making your NØTOKSÖS sofa, HALPPME table, or “FUQQDÄT” bedframe. “Price reductions thanks to the Stasi?” Basically, IKEA had befriended the East German secret police to use forced labor.
And as in any good scandal, the Stasi documents pulled out of the hat confirmed the involvement of these prisoners in the IKEA production line in the 70s and 80s. Stasi documents cited in this documentary even suggested that IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad approved the cooperation. IKEA, caught in the act of naivety (or false-pretending), played the card of “Oh, us, really? We didn’t know anything about it!” with an internal investigation and promises that exploitation is not their style.
And frankly, given that the instructions to every piece of Ikea furniture is the epitome of incomprehensible, this little revelation might answer a lot of questions as to the conditions people had to be in when they were writing them down. “If I have to feel pain, so should you.”
6: Nothing says “reliable” like a CEO in Vegas with the company credit card: FedEx
And finally, a little detour to the gaming tables: when FedEx owes its survival to a blackjack hand rather than a business plan.
The express delivery juggernaut began its adventure a little less… conventionally. Frederick Smith, the big cheese, started the company with a brilliant idea (thanks to his college homework) and a small inheritance. Everything seemed to be going well, until economic realities hit him like a loosely tied package.
Imagine the scene: FedEx, in 1973, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Planes are prepared to remain grounded for lack of money for fuel. And there, Smith, in a flash of genius (or madness, depending), takes the last $5,000 from the company and flies to Vegas. Objective ? Make this sum grow in blackjack. Because, obviously, when your business is on the brink of collapse, the logical solution is to play financial roulette.
The gamble pays off: Smith wins $27,000, enough to keep his planes flying for one more week. Not really the traditional rescue plan, but it had the merit of giving FedEx another week. Smith eventually raised more funds, and the company finally took off in earnest.
Eventually, he managed to raise $11 million more, and in 1976, FedEx finally made a profit of $3.6 million. The company went public a few years later and became the giant we know today.
So every time you see a FedEx truck, remember that this global logistics empire owes its existence to a night of gambling. Something to make you think the next time you hesitate to bet on red or black, right?
And there you have it, dear audience, our stroll through the dark, tortuous, and sometimes downright absurd behind-the-scenes of these beloved brands. From bloody bananas and sex cult cutlery to zero-gravity penetration and desperate express-delivery gambles, it’s safe to say the world of big business is never boring. So the next time you cure a hangover, send a gift card, or set a table for dinner, remember: behind every mundane product might be a Tarantino movie.
