Meet Kellogg’s Sludge Puppet

A new puppet's in town! His name is Karden, and according to his PR, he shows kids how much fun gardening can be. What parents and teachers aren't told is that he is actually a marketing tool for sewage sludge merchant Kellogg Garden Products.

November 9, 2011 | Source: Food Rights Network | by

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A new puppet’s in town! His name is Karden, and according to his PR, he shows kids how much fun gardening can be. What parents and teachers aren’t told is that he is actually a marketing tool for sewage sludge merchant Kellogg Garden Products.

Books featuring Karden, available at common bookstores, and an “Idea Factory” website devoted to him, are full of gardening activities for parents and teachers to do with their kids. Karden throws free kids’ gardening events at bookstores and hardware stores.

Lisa Ely, one of the two creators of the character, is listed on a gardening website about “Karden’s Corner” as “an award-winning television producer and owner of one the newest production companies in Los Angeles focused on documentary television.” But while she has, indeed, produced such reality TV shows as CBS’s “The Amazing Race,” Discovery Channel’s “Verminators,” and TLC’s “America’s Ugliest,” Ely’s Facebook page lists no production company. Instead, it lists Kellogg as her employer …