- [Narrator] Cutting
corners is one way companies can achieve high returns
on their investments. By reducing their overhead costs, they can increase their profits without charging customers more. In practice, this may manifest in the form of a chef using
a lower quality cooking oil, a bus company fixing its
vehicles with refurbished parts, or a movie production
company hiring Kevin James. However, some cut corners
result in way worse damages than the retinal ones incurred from seeing Kevin James shirtless. Join me as I review the 10 worst ways in which companies have cut corners. (playful music) - Amazing! - [Narrator] Number 10: Chinese baby formula scandal. China is the global leader
in adulterating products in order to increase profits. While usually, this results in nothing more than slightly
off-sounding products such as Louis Glutton handbags
and the PrayStation 4, when Chinese adulteration hits products not intended for adults, serious consequences can follow. In 2008, baby formula from the country was found to be
contaminated with melamine, a chemical used to overstate
the protein content of milk. When added to the formula, it led to over 300,000 victims receiving insufficient protein, and six babies dying from kidney stones. In contrast to the lax
punishments usually dealt to corporate criminals in the States, the perpetrators of this crime
were handed stiff sentences and two were put to death. Sadly, the whistleblower who
first alerted authorities to the scandal was also killed in an unusual circumstances. Number nine: Failure to label allergens. It all began with an
adolescent French tourist named Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who tragically succumbed in 2016 at the Pret in Heathrow Airport after the shop failed to inform her of the presence of
sesame seeds in her food. Surprisingly, one in 100 people are allergic to sesame protein, and reactions can vary from rashes to breathing difficulties. Pret confirmed its products
weren't individually labeled with allergen or ingredient information, and that customers must speak to managers who are trained to provide advice. In the end, the coroner
described the allergy labeling at Pret as inadequate. A year later, history repeated itself in the historic city of Bath when another person died due to an undisclosed dairy ingredient. Turned out this time it was likely one of their suppliers, CoYo. Two independent
authorities along with Pret found trace amounts of dairy protein in their dairy-free yogurt, which led to Pret severing
their relationship with the brand. Still, CoYo has refused to take the blame, stating that the contaminated
product they tested wasn't the same one that led to the death, and it was one of their
third-party suppliers who passed on the contaminated dairy; so they no longer work with them. Even though it's ironic
a dairy-free product is being sold with dairy, it's clear Pret needs to fix its labeling and vetting of products. Number eight: gutter oil. In China, cutting corners has resulted in a culinary product that even a chef from Kitchen Nightmares wouldn't touch. Gutter oil, as it's known, is a fetid concoction that's made through a multi-step process. First, a bucket is threaded through an open manhole on the street. Then, raw sewage is scooped
out and placed in a trough. Using strainers, the solid portions of the sewage are removed from the fecal nectar in which they float, and the juices are
poured into a container. Finally, it's mixed with
used beef tallow and spices to create a cooking oil
that costs less than a 10th of the price of ordinary cooking oil, but contains more than 10
times the amount of raw sewage. Experts estimate one in 10 meals in China contains gutter oil, and it was even discovered in use at a regional McDonald's. While I'm all for being adventurous, I think using a compost
compote is going too far. Number seven: Turmeric producers use lead. After children in Boston
started testing positive for lead poisoning
following the consumption of Indian spices, a search to trace the source of the contamination was launched. Harvard researchers traveled
to rural Bangladesh and India, where the spice is grown, and found that some samples
from the area contained over 100 times the allowable limit for the neurotoxic heavy metal. However, what was most
alarming and infuriating were the discoveries of local reporters. The reason behind the
high lead level readings in the spices analyzed was
not that they were grown in a contaminated area, but that the farmers themselves were adulterating their
yield with lead chromate. Lead chromate is the
same vibrant yellow color as healthy tumeric, and the farmers were masking imperfections in their crops by
coloring them with a metal known to cause cancer and reduce IQ. If there's any silver lining
to this lead-lined cloud, it's that now I know that if I ever need to have an X-ray taken of my midsection, I need only have a bowl of
turmeric-containing curry to protect my stomach from the radiation. Number six: Deepwater Horizon disaster. Despite being one of the most profitable companies on the planet, BP Oil could not be bothered to splurge on a required amount of concrete between the casings of its well. This failure to adequately
reinforce its wells led to a blow-out of
catastrophic proportions, with over 130 million gallons of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, and local fishing and seafood industries sustaining a massive blow. Not only did BP cut corners in the initial construction of its well, they also did a mediocre job
of atoning for their actions. Even thought the total
damages of the oil spill amounted to a staggering 32 billion, BP managed to get away with
paying a paltry 20 billion, leaving taxpayers on the hook for roughly $12 billion
worth of cleaning costs. Number five: Bayer sold
HIV infected products. As the old saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. But Bayer Pharmaceuticals
expanded this principle to include medical waste. Ignoring federal laws, Bayer recruited prisoners,
intravenous drug users, and high-risk gay men as donors to make the clotting
product hemophiliacs need in order to not bleed to death. In the 1980's, after discovering
that the clotting factors they were producing for hemophiliacs were tainted with HIV, Bayer did what any sensible and ethical corporation would do and destroyed the batches at the cost of their profit margins. Just kidding! In reality, these
corner-cutting sleazebags intentionally moved their
sales over to foreign markets and infected thousands of people with HIV. Patients throughout Europe,
Asia, and South America developed the deadly virus, and succumbed as involuntary
sacrificial lambs to Bayer's shareholders. Unfortunately, like the
the heads of the Hydra in the story of Hercules, the corners Bayer cut multiplied tenfold. After their insidious
behavior came to light, they were struck down
with court settlements totalling in the vicinity of $50 million. Number four: horse meat sold as beef. While folk wisdom may advise against beating a dead horse, in 2013 the folks at European
meat producer BPD Food Group decided there was nothing wrong with eating a dead horse. After investigators by
the Food Safety Authority of Ireland uncovered the presence of horse DNA in beef products, more extensive tests were carried out that revealed the alarming extent to which horse meat abounded in products that were marketed as beef. Of 27 supposedly bovine products sampled, 37% tested positive for horse DNA. In some cases, burgers tested contained as much as 29% horse meat, meaning that either some
kinky inter-species breeding was going on at the industrial farm, or a company was turning
its beef production into a horse and pony show. Mixing different cuts of other animals like horses into meat products is one of the cheapest
ways to keep costs low, which is why those buying budget products were much more likely
to be eating horse meat. In May of 2013 English
authorities arrested a Dutch wholesaler of meat and charged him with marking 300 tons of horse meat as beef, showing that when it
comes to the sale of beef, British authorities won't take any bull. Number three: poor construction. In August of 1992, Hurricane Andrew swept
through South Florida and blew the cover off the
slipshod construction practices of many corrupt Floridian contractors. The storm, which is regarded
as one of the most potent in the state's history quite
literally blew the meter that was intended to gauge its severity, leaving meteorologists at a loss to quantify its full
potential for destruction. In its wake, the storm razed
much of Southern Dade County and left millions displaced. Though the storm's winds
were nothing to scoff at, later investigations revealed
that the hurricane's magnitude was amplified by the poorly
executed construction Of the homes that had
to contend against it. In the structural post-mortem that ensued, some of the the roof beams
in many of the fallen homes were found to have been bound
together by a single nail. Others were only brought
together by adhesive. While the damages attributed
to the storm were unimaginable, one positive by-product of the storm was that it changed building codes and the ability for
contractors to cut corners for years to come. Number two: coffee from
ground-up batteries. A Vietnamese coffee producer
discovered a new way to put an electric charge into its brew by making it out of discarded batteries. According to local authorities more than 12 tons of the
toxic tonic were collected during a raid on a family-run company. Police descended upon
the ma-and-pa facility after neighbors reported
that suspicious activities were occurring on the premises. Turned out, the owner
bought rejected coffee beans from other facilities at low prices and would then grind them up and mix them with other ingredients
such as dirt and rock dust. Finally, the mixture would be dyed black from the powder that was
extracted form used batteries. The owner admitted to having
flooded the local market with over three tons of
the poisonous powder, which researches claimed
contained massive levels of manganese dioxide, a metal that can cause
delirium, hallucinations, and irreversible brain damage. I can only hope this
corner-cutting skuzzball will be charged with
assault with batteries. Number one: butt injections. How far would you go to get a juicy booty? Clearly for some, the thought of having a
permanent protruding bump for extra cushioning when sitting down is so resistible they decide
it's worth getting implants, or fat injected into their behind to make their posterior
perfectly preposterously plump. But, it gets weirder. A doctor in Florida was discovered to be doctoring the natural
form of some of her patients by injecting their butts with
a gluteal-enhancing mixture of cement, superglue, mineral oil, and Fix-a-Flat tire mender. After her cement path to buns of steel sent a
patient to a real doctor, you know, one that doesn't use Fix-a-Flat to fix flat butts, she was charged by Miami police for practicing medicine without a license. I'm certain when news of
what landed her in jail spread throughout her cellblock, she became the butt of many jokes. So how do you feel about these
corporate corner-cutters? Do you think they're
greed-driven predators who deserve much more severe punishments? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below. Thanks for watching! (gentle music)
