There’s a murmur that runs through business audiences when Mike Bronner describes employee benefits and corporate philosophy at his family’s Vista-based Dr. Bronner’s, the nation’s leading natural soap brand: “I want to work there.”

And who wouldn’t?

The company serves free daily lunches to its 270 employees, offers free weekly yoga classes and discounts onsite massage therapy sessions. It sends a fire truck, bought from Coronado six years ago, to local schools and street fairs to show off a soap-based foam used in Hollywood to resemble snow.

“We like to have fun,” said Bertine Kabellis, senior engagement officer on a tour of the soap factory off South Melrose Drive at Sycamore Avenue. “We do a really good job of balancing fun with work.”


Benefits include fully paid health insurance, $5,000 in annual childcare subsidies, year-end bonuses of up to 25 percent and a profit-sharing retirement fund with up to 15 percent of each worker’s salary contributed annually by the company.

Executive pay is capped at no more than five times the lowest starting hourly rate of $18.71, when the national average is 312 times.

Understandably, almost nobody quits voluntarily, according to Bronner, the company’s 44-year-old president.

Employee comments in the Energage survey of Dr. Bronner’s for this year’s Top Workplaces — where the company ranked No. 1 for medium-sized companies — report reflect those feelings:


“Dr. Bronner’s makes a difference, not just in our local community but worldwide!”

“I love that I work for and with a company that is altruistic and practices what it preaches.”

President Michael Bronner , CFO Trudy Bronner and other family members helped expand the company from health stores and surf shops to retail chains. (Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

With the corporate motto of “All-One” stamped on its bars of “magic soap” — an abbreviation of company founder Emanuel Bronner’s belief, “We are All-One or None” — Dr. Bronner’s walks the talk of global responsibility and corporate accountability.


It is the third-highest ranked Certified B Corp for ethical, sustainable and progressive business practices in the world. It’s also incorporated as a “benefit corporation,” which allows it to spend excess profits on the public good rather than only shareholder distribution.

In return, the company has seen revenue grow from $4 million in 1998, the year after company founder Emanuel Bronner died at age 89, to a projected $122.5 million this year and $150 million by 2021. All this with minimal advertising and marketing and a loyal following of hippies-turned-yuppies- turned-soccer-moms and -NASCAR dads, says Mike Bronner.

Some devoted customers speak of the tingly sensation generated by soaps bearing fragrances like peppermint, hemp green tea, and cherry blossoms.

In the warehouse stand 24 tanks containing 8,000 gallons each of liquid Castile soap (olive-oil-based soap with no animal products, originally from that Spanish province). They are color-coded to the fragrances contained inside — pink for rose, blue for peppermint, green for tea, orange for citrus — and bottled in containers of 2 ounces to 1 gallon.


In another building, inch-size pellets are pressed into 5-ounce bars of soap, wrapped and boxed at the rate of 18,000 bars per shift.

The product line has grown to include liquid and shaving soaps, hair cream and rinse, lip balm, body lotions, hand sanitizer, biodegradable cleaner, organic coconut oil and toothpaste.

The company sources Fair Trade oils from Africa, Asia and South America and has sued other companies for failing to properly label products as containing genetically modified organisms. It has spent $5 million since 2001 to legalize cannabis.

David Bronner, Mike’s older brother who carries the title “cosmic engagement officer” and drives a Tesla with a painted dragon on the side — was even arrested in 2012 when he locked himself inside a metal cage near the White House to demonstrate how to harvest hemp seed oil and spread it on a piece of French bread. (Hemp and marijuana are both grown from cannabis plants.)


Dr. Bronner has been bucking the establishment for decades.

Emanuel Bronner, born in 1908 into a family of soap makers in Heilbronn, Germany, emigrated to the U.S. at age 21 as the Nazis started to gain power (he soon dropped “heil” from his Heilbronner surname).

He advised American soap and chemical companies, became a U.S. citizen in 1936 and developed a philosophy that he pitched in speeches as he traveled around the country from Chicago.

Soap samples were handed out to attendees at his talks and when he realized they came just for the soap, he printed his favorite messages on the labels.


He founded Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps in 1948 and sold 20 gallons of liquid soap a year, relying on word of mouth to move his product.

Bronner moved to Escondido in the 1960s, drawn by its bucolic setting (he liked to sunbathe in the nude) and opened a factory there.

The company’s compassionate employee relations and philanthropy originated with the relatively impoverished conditions the family faced in Chicago.

Mike Bronner recalls his Uncle Ralph giving $50 bills to restaurant dishwashers in recognition of the thankless work they performed. His father, Jim Bronner, would stop to help stranded motorists driving through the Mojave Desert.


After Emanuel died in 1997 and Jim Bronner in 1998, David, Mike, their sister Lisa, mother Trudy and Uncle Ralph cleaned up the company’s finances and began expanding from health food stores and surf shops into malls and retail chains.

Target signed on at the suggestion of Burt’s Bees, the all-natural skin product company. Trader Joe’s, Costco and others also signed on. International expansion led to 40 countries contributing to more than 20 percent of annual company revenue.

In its 2019 annual report, “Look, It’s All Connected,” printed on a poster-sized foldout with psychedelic colors, the company lists $8.4 million in charitable donations to more than 160 organizations — from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Jail Guitar Doors to Friends of the Earth and the Food Chain Workers Alliance.

Under the new Employee Giving Program, each worker receives $100 to donate to one of five selected charities chosen by the staff; the total for the first year was $20,000.


Looking to the future, Mike Bronner said sales are not likely to slump in a recession because of the “lipstick effect.”

“It means when times are tough, you can’t go on a vacation or buy a new car, but you can do little things like buy soap that makes a shower that much better,” he said.

Roger Showley is a freelance writer. He can be reached at rmshowley@yahoo.com and (619) 787-5714.