Mark certainly has done well for himself.  Horizon has become a huge natural food company which has now expanded beyond dairy products.

I think Mark got his start and Rainbow in Denver.  He is most definitely an ex-premie. 

BTW -- I really like Whole Foods but I am told the company is anti-union.  So, I tend to stick with my wonderful "worker owned cooperative" (Rainbow Grocery), which never had anything to do with the Rawat cult, except that some premies used to work there.  They do sell all the Horizon products, however.

I think one of the best developments in food distribution is the growth of farmers markets.  There is one in almost every neighborhood in my city.  There is one about two blocks from my house on Saturday mornings, and it's great, and also a great place for the neighborhood to get together.

Buy locally and support your local organic farmers!

These PREMIE millionaires were made by Divine Slave Labor

What a crock of shit!

This guy is now heralded as some kind of health food wizard and marketing genius, but they don't describe how he and other owners of Rainbow Grocery got their start.

These guys all made on the backs of Divine Slave Labor.  They'd be nobodies if they had to create, sustain, and grow a business that had normal cost structures.

My experience at Rainbow Grocery in Chicago was that it was started by the ashram in order to keep costs down when feeding a large group of people.  Certainly, there was a coordinated effort by ashrams to lower their costs by sending one or more ashram residents to the local wholesale produce markets to buy produce and other goods at wholesale prices.  Eventually, the idea got pushed out as food was purchased and delivered to premie houses. The natural extension was some kind of buying club that with a little seed capital got turned into a retail operation.

And the retail operations, as well as the buying clubs, were staffed by volunteers or ashram premies.  And the community urged non-ashram premies to do Service at the buying club location or the retail operation.

The Rainbow Grocery operations had a distinct advantage over local and established health food stores because Rainbow Grocery had volunteer labor.  Or at worse Rainbow Grocery used sleight of hand tricks to pay workers less than the legal minimum wage and avoided paying all worker related taxes like their share of Social Security and worker's compensation and liability and injury insurance and the like by hiring workers who were forced to sign "Independent Contractor" agreements.  And I believe that David Shimberg of Chicago was responsible for coming up with that concept in Chicago.

For myself, I was an unpaid volunteer at Rainbow Grocery from it's physical inception around December of 1994.  My first paycheck was in May of 1975 for the paltry amount of $40.00 per week, which was substantially less than the Federal minimum wage.  I did not receive any health benefits or any other kind of benefit.  In fact, during that time I had a bicycle wreck and had to go to the Emergency Room to get x-rays and stitches.  When I got the bill from the hospital I had to plead poverty and have them write it off.  Yes, this was an example of Maharaji bringing peace and harmony to the troubled planet.  Well, if only parents still paid to clothe and feed their cult-gone children and hospitals would forego payment and Federal programs would provide Food Stamps and other services.

Oh, and, of course, Rainbow Grocery was a non-profit entity and paid no taxes that most commercial entities are required to make.  Got to love the "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's" premie attitude.

Rainbow Grocery of Chicago became a huge success.  Competitors suffered and complained and filed lawsuits alleging they were driven out of business by slave labor used by Rainbow.  Yes, that's true.  They were, indeed, harmed because of slave labor.  We laughed at them for their lack of understanding of who we were and what we were doing!

At some point the ownership of Rainbow Grocery of Chicago was secretly transferred to Steve Kriston by DLM/DUO/The Ashram for whatever reasons.  Within a year Steve Kriston had purchased a very nice condo right near Lake Michigan.  He was driving a BMW and stores were popping up all over the city.  And, yes, there was a secret store in Evanston that might have been owned by  Atlanta's Jim Hennisson? or some guy named Jim.  Also, see the Word document links to see all the players involved in the final sale of Rainbow in 1994 that put Steve Kriston way over the top as a multi-millionaire.

I remember that one weekend some national DLM big wheel had stayed at Kriston's.  I was there and I saw and was told that the person liked porno and that's cool and that's why they had two porno tapes delivered by a local porno delivery service.  Gosh, how cool and liberated, I thought.  But, they'd really prefer to stay home watching porno than going to hear satsang?  Yes, I was GREEN.

Here's another sick aspect of this dirty business that still bothers me.  Rainbow Grocery was co-op and it really was in the beginning, but soon it was a viable for-profit, but not-paying any local, state or federal taxes.  As a co-op Rainbow would charge members an annual fee of something like $25 or $35 per person or $50 or $60 per household.  If people didn't want to be members they could shop at Rainbow, but they would be charged a 10% surcharge.  I always felt funny when non-premie co-op members would come to the store to do service because we would encourage members to help out just like a lot of food buying clubs and co-ops do.  But it felt funny to me because it felt deceptive since I and other premies were volunteering because we were doing Service for Maharaji.  It just felt dishonest and wrong.

But, the funny story is that Rainbow Grocery was a member of a non-profit food wholesale outfit called GIPC, which stood for Greater Illinois People's Co-Op.  GIPC was a wholesaler who had some really crumby offices and a warehouse on the third floor of a building at Chicago's South Water Produce Market.  They were surviving on a song and a prayer.  But, they were good people who didn't have a guru that were trying to do that co-op thing for people thing that was the rage back then and still is in a few more interesting locales on the planet.

GIPC sold us cheese and whole wheat pasta at a very good price.  But, at the point where Rainbow Grocery was operating a successful retail storefront operation the GIPC board determined that Rainbow was no longer a real co-op and that Rainbow would need to pay a 10% surcharge.  And rightly so, in my opinion, because Rainbow's increasing purchases were straining GIPC's capacity to the point where GIPC needed to expand their operation.  Fair enough, I thought.  Well, good old Steve Kriston, the guy that nobody could get a long with, was rather miffed and complained and whined for a couple of weeks about it. Well, Steve decided, and it was a good business move, to cut out GIPC and buy direct from cheese producers in Wisconsin and get the pasta elsewhere.  It's funny because I believe, and I could be wrong, that a few years later Rainbow bought out GIPC.

The problem I have with Steve Kriston, the tofu king of Boulder and all the other owners or Rainbow Grocery like the one in Seattle is that these people made it off the backs of good natured and naive people who showed up and worked for free under the guise of serving Maharaji.  And then to see these operations turn retail and harm other honest business owners who gave a shit about their workers and paid taxes and minimum wage.  You know, it's nothing short of CRIMINAL.  Yes, CRIMINAL.  And now these CRIMINALS are millionaires getting their mugs pasted into magazines with glowing articles about their entrepreneurship.  Like I said, what a crock of shit colored toe-food.

http://www.drek.us/pages/corporate/rainbow/Prem_mark_Colorado.doc

http://www.drek.us/pages/corporate/rainbow/Sale_of_PremMark.doc

http://www.drek.us/pages/corporate/rainbow/prem_mark_corporate.doc

http://www.drek.us/pages/corporate/rainbow/rainbow_grocery.doc

Note: The usual suspects of Bob Jacobs, Donald De Laski, Alvaro Pascotto, John Bale in the above document.

http://www.drek.us/pages/corporate/rainbow/slave_labor_letter_page1.jpg

http://www.drek.us/pages/corporate/rainbow/slave_labor_letter_page2.jpg

http://www.unfi.com/

http://www.rainbownf.com/

This is something I've wondered about over the years.  These cult busineses which got started and sustained because they used slaves and didn't really have much in the way of labor costs.  Very few businesses (with the exception of family-run businesses, which have self-limiting growth potential), have that advantage.

I lived in the ashram in Chicago in the mid-to-late 70s and I was on the board of the non-profit Rainbow Grocery for awhile.  The concept was, that the slave labor was appropriate because of the money that was going to go to the cult in spreading knowledge and in supporting Rawat.  The other members of the Rainbow Board at that time were Steve Kriston, David Shiimberg, Linda Smith and "     " Weiss.  (What was his first name?)

Not only were the premie workers at Rainbow paid very little, they had no benefits at all.  A large percentage of the ashram premies worked there.  So, not only were they working for slave wages, they were subsidized by all the rest of us in the ashram who worked in "the world" and supported the ashram, partially allowing these premies to work for tiny wages and no benefits.

I recall at Rainbow Board meetings bringing up the subject of raising the pay of Rainbow workers, because as ashram housefather, I saw how hard it was to make ends meet as the numbers of ashram premies working for Rainbow increased (at one point is was more than half of the ashram).  Anyhow, I was told by Kriston and Shimberg that Rainbow couldn't afford to do that.  We were expanding to a second store, and money was tight.  If they had to pay more wages, there wouldn't have been the money to expand.

So, the idea that some of the honchos made millions out of this is kind of astounding.

What were the names of the premie couple who worked for Rainbow.  I recall one managed the store on the north side, and the other managed the store on Wellington.  They were nice people, and I don't think they made millions (did they?)    I heard they went into the Amtext book-buying cult business in Southern California.

I left Chicago in 1979 and we had just opened the second Rainbow store (and I think this one was called Premark on West Estes Avenue in Rogers Park).  The first one was on Wellington in the Belmont area.

I worked closely with Steve Kriston in getting the construction financing for the second store, and actually went to the bank (Bank of Ravenswood) that financed the loan and negotiated the deal with Steve.

I remember as ashram housefather how little the premies who worked for Rainbow made and how we relied on the other premies who didn't have cult jobs to make up the difference.

So, I guess Steve and Dorie Kriston are living the high life out of all of that.  I don't doubt Steve worked hard in the business, but it should be acknowledged the distinct advantage the business had because of the low wages it paid (again, with no benefits).

The "Jim" you are referring to is probably "Jim Emerson" who had a natural foods store in Atlanta, and was a business honcho in the cult.  He was quite a bit older than the other premies as I recall, and I have to say I never trusted him -- I always felt wary about dealing with him.

Anyhow, I think all of this is a huge issue and I'd love it if more people involved in this (including those involved in the stores in Denver and Seattle (Atlanta, too, I guess).

Later a store was opened in Lincoln Park, I think it was Fulton Ave? It was fairly avant garde as it tried to make the jump from esoteric health food coop to mainstream healthfood oriented supermarket. They also sold organic beef. I knew the guy who trained to be the butcher there too, but I forget his name as well. Jim something or other.

I also know a bit of extremely trashy gossip about Steven Kriston which I won't repeat here but let's just say that the money didn't make Steve and Dory happy it would seem. Dory always seemed nice, but I had the feeling that Steve was a machinating jerk. I also remember the house father after you asking Steve to pay the ashram premies more and him saying that it wasn't possible. Even the CC, Kirk Ritchie I think talked to him about that. Because they wanted the ashrams to start being more presentable and it just wasn't possible with the measley Rainbow wages.

Another thing that was very popular at the time was that in addition to the normal "slaves", there were community organized "service nights" where other premies, in and out of the ashram would come and work for some hours for free bagging granola or something. I remember being asked, doing it once and then never again. The whole thing seemed completely weird to me even then, as it just wasn't clear what the "service" actually was. Or in other words, it seemed like it was service to Steve. Even at my young, though business-savvy, age I felt like the whole deal wasn't kosher. Exactly for the reasons you say. Why the hell could all the other health food stores manage to do okay without all the slave labor. And on top of that they had an automatic loyal customer base of premies.

Actually now that I am thinking about it I think I bitched quite a few times to ashram premie friends, the house father and the CC about it for exactly those reasons. It seemed utterly absurd that Steven couldn't pay the ashram premies more and that actually it was anti-service what he was doing, because he wasn't supporting the ashram. I would like to think that my words made a difference with the CC, because I do remember some changes happening.

I really don't know, but I remember that when I got there there was this kind of "holiness" about the stores and no one dared speak against them. So then little ol me came along and planted the seed of doubt. I think probably the CC and some others were privately thinking that too, and that my speaking out helped to bring things to the surface. On the other hand maybe I had nothing to do with it.

But in the end somehow the whole discussion becomes absurd. Is it better that the money went to Steve Kriston or Rawat or whomever else? Somehow it is all irrelevant. At the time, I was really being negative because I thought the money wasn't going to Rawat and his mission. Oh yes, by the way, Steve was already driving around in a big fat Mercedes at that time, while the ashram premies were being underpaid and people were spending their nights bagging nuts.

There really was always this sort of caste system in the Rawat cult and it had to do with wealth, usually inherited wealth.

This hit me really hard towards the end of my time in the ashram when I realized that there were quite a number of ashram premies who came from wealthy families, and who pretty much expected that if the ashrams closed, or they left, they would have opportunities available to them, courtesy of their rich families. 

Those ashram premies who came from the working class, and who spent 10 years developing nothing were the ones who REALLY got screwed by Rawat's cult.  They pretty much had to start over in their 30s on every level, because they really didn't have any resources to fall back on, other than themselves.  Because, let's face it, Rawat didn't lift a finger to help them, and even stuck them with the debts of his ashrams.  What a slimeball.  He had the same type of "let-them-eat-cake" attitude, because Rawat never had to work a day in his life for anything, except to the extent he extends effort to be worshipped, to scare the shit out of people, and to (coyingly and subtly (nowadays)), pretend to be God.

I also noticed after I got to Miami, this group of really rich premies like Steve Sordoni and others, who kind of just spent their lives following Rawat around, living high, and perhaps being in the inner circle for no other reason than because they had time and money.

The rich crowd never came to community satsang in Miami, it was way beneath them.  They preferred to hang out at more ritzy places, and/or didn't go to satsang at all, probably didn't practice knowledge, just were part of the jet set crowd, going to every program no matter where it was, and being part of the gopi, stylish, entourage.

One other thing comes to mind.  I remember when the DECA plane project was going on, Rawat personally interviewed some ashram premies to be trained to be stewards or stewardesses on "His" plane, and I recall there was a pattern in the people selected to be interviewed.  They were mostly fairly attractive, and from wealthy families, who they had a somewhat more "refined" vibe to them.  Ordinary, working class, ashram premies were not interviewed, as I recall.  It also seemed to me that some of the Initiators were selected on that basis, including a few who were otherwise fairly nuts and were pretty much incapable of even doing the "service."  Deborah Roettinger comes to mind.  It really shocked me that she got selected.

And then there was always this jet-set crowd of people, wearing designer clothes, who sat in the front rows at programs.  Most of them I never saw, except at those events, up in the front rows, not that I ever sat up there with them.

In fact, the closest I ever sat at an event with Prem Rawat, was in 1990, when I, for the first time in like 8 years, went to see Rawat in San Francisco at the Mariott Hotel, which was a few blocks from my office.  I walked in and they gave me a "ticket" after first trying to hit me up for money.  I declined.  But the seat was like in about the 10th row, the closest I ever sat.  I think I got the seat because I was by myself, I was dressed up in my business suit, and it was just shortly before the program began and they needed to fill all the seats.   In the middle of Rawat's offensive diatribe about how screwed up the "people of the world" are, I got up and walked out.  I guess in that case it woud have been easier if I was in the back.  As I walked out I saw the looks on the faces of the premies as they watched Rawat speak and it creeped me out completely.