TLDR

@thelocalloco has a history of making false and sometimes dangerous representations of products.

1. @thelocalloco has marketed at least 2 products that are potentially hazardous to pets and marketed them as pet safe. Our cat Saru suffered a sudden onset of severe kidney disease, following our use of a product labelled pet safe by @thelocalloco. Our otherwise healthy cat suddenly had a prognosis of months to live at one point and will need to take subcutaneous fluids daily for the rest of his life.

2. By coincidence - @thelocalloco made unqualified and false representations about GrowPole during our methodical investigation. Which provoked our initial response on their Instagram post.

3. They suggested that they had a part to play in the design and development of a plastic moss pole product that they simply imported from Taobao and white labelled. A move seemingly to garner undeserved recognition amongst various reseller of the same product.

4. When challenged about the unqualified representations, @thelocalloco framed it as racism and insinuated that we are stifling innovation.

Here’s our statement to set the record straight.

1. We support innovation.

   1. We have been keenly aware of derivative products on the market. Apart from direct copies, we have never thwarted the sale and supply of derivative designs until this incident.

2. We support diversity - here’s two great recommendations

   1. If you seek an original product - @grow.vertical makes an excellent innovative moss pole that pre-dates our design. Their original D profile pole is the game changer in the quest for a better plant pole.

   2. If you seek an innovative product - @ourgentlegarden makes a small round folding pole.

3. We deserve better vendors in the community

   1. In our open letter, we will show that @thelocalloco has a history of false representations in pursuit of profit.

   2. Today, that false representation has likely injured our pet, possibly yours as well.

   3. Nobody knows what their next false claims could cause.

4. We ask that @Drgreenthumb remove @thelocalloco as their “exclusive Asia distributor” for the false “pet safe” claims.

Open Letter

By now, many of the Singapore plant community would’ve known that I’ve used my personal account @greytan1 to knock down @thelocalloco.

Accusations and representations have since been made that 1) we stifle innovation 2) we’re racists against the Chinese

I would like to set the record straight that it wasn’t done from a commercial angle. It was done from the perspective of a disappointed and heartbroken pet parent.

Close supporters know that we’ve been aware of derivative products for a long time. We have consistently reiterated our stance - We will shut down any direct copies. While we are uncomfortable, we’ve never shot down differentiated products. With competition comes more choices and innovation and that is better for the plant community.

There are many derivative product sellers, here’s why we are only concerned with the way @thelocalloco does business and so should you.

Personally I find their actions abhorrent, but I leave the verdict to you.

Origins

On 11th January 2022, our cat of 10 years Saru was diagnosed with kidney failure, with a Creatinine level of 7.3. Cats with Creatinine level beyond 5 have “months to live”. He also has elevated liver markers. We were absolutely distraught, we treated him like our son. The extended family knows and loves him, most of our neighbours know him by name.

He was warded for 3 days on emergency IV drip treatment.

His creatinine level dropped to 3.5 during his stay at the pet hospital. The vets told us to expect it to hold stable/fall if we put him on a subcutaneous drip of 100-150ml per day.

4 days later his creatinine level went back up to 3.8mg/dL despite the home treatment and care.

The common denominator:

false representations by @thelocalloco

We were perplexed by the worsening diagnosis. We have 4 cats, it was paramount to get to the root cause of the issue. We went through environmental factors in our house and realized that his sudden onset of illness coincided with an increase in spider mite activity in our plant collection.

We were using “Bug Boss King Hit’ on our indoor plants to control spider mite population. Common sense would dictate that we should take care when spraying pest control agents. However, we did it without much precautions because @thelocalloco the Asia exclusive distributor of “Bug Boss King Hit” specified on their website in verbatim

“King Hit is safe for humans, pets and pollinators however; its pest killing contents are 100% organic and non-toxic.” - @thelocalloco

We also used “Bug Boss King Hit” quite extensively in our small apartment years ago without precautions near our cats due to their misrepresentations.

It was a gross misrepresentation we trusted implicitly because the product had an Australian origin and was presented by the “exclusive distributor in Asia.”

Not to mention we bought the product years ago, new to the plant keeping hobby, trusting vendors to do the right thing.

It turns out that “Bug Boss King Hit” contains a number of essential oils.

In our investigation into Saru’s kidney issues, we’ve found out that a large number of essential oils are highly toxic to cats. Some are acute toxicity and others long term. It causes liver and kidney damage in cats because they do not have the enzymes to process them.

Some essential oils are toxic to dogs as well. Since the contents were not indicated, it was not prudent to market it “pet safe” without any qualifiers or precautions.

While the use of “Bug Boss King Hit” may not have directly caused Saru’s kidney conditions, it is hard to dissociate it as a contributing factor.

What is clear, is the misrepresentation by @thelocalloco

@thelocalloco promoted “Reset” by @drgreenthumb as the successor product to “Bug Boss King Hit”. “Reset” also contains essential oils. We searched every single product description by Australian retailers, including @drgreenthumb themselves.

Not a single listing apart from @thelocalloco made the representation that it was pet safe.

Yet there it was on @thelocalloco’s product page

“Reset is a completely neem-free formulation safe for humans and pets.”. - It is not.

Whistleblowing

In our moment of anguish over Saru’s prognosis, we were methodical and scientific in our approach, making sure we are not making false accusations, which has implications on innocent parties such as @drgreenthumb.

We were in process of sending “Bug Boss King Hit” and “Reset” to a laboratory for mass spectrometry test to identify the chemical composition before we make public any of our findings.

That was when @thelocalloco once again posted false and unqualified opinions. This time touting the design benefits of a hexagonal design - despite not being able to tell the difference between tensile and compressive loads.

It’s like claiming to know the alphabet without knowing A,B,C. This is forming a clear pattern of deceit for profit.

We have no choice but to whistleblow on this persistent fraudulent behaviour.

We commented our concerns on their Instagram. It was met with derisive rhymes and deflecting our concerns with accusations that we are racists.

The Unvarnished Truth

In light of the urgency of the matter and the closure of the mass spectrometry lab for the Lunar New Year, we’ve asked @drgreenthumb if the two products were pet safe instead.

He has informed us that it is potent and should be used with caution.

We’re impressed by the upstanding position that @drgreenthumb has taken and we applaud him for being forthright.

Dear Scott, we beseech you to consider changing your “exclusive Asia distributor”. A distributor is the face of your product, @thelocalloco has without a doubt tarnished that good name.

@thelocalloco also claim to have carried out “experiments with various types of grow poles (our brand name) and grow sticks over the past year” and found hexagons to be the ideal shape.

We challenge them to show evidence of plants that have grown for that period of time, given that they could not even produce a sample for marketing photos or a physical sample to offer us, when they proffered it to us unsolicited.

The ball is in your court @thelocalloco