The decline of Tahitian Noni Juice, and along with it Tahitian Noni International, Inc. (TNI) (held by Morinda Holdinds, Inc.) is showing some interesting and possibly desperate activities.

As reported earlier, the Tahitian Noni Cafe’s, the brainfarts of Kelly Olson, have now been closed and done away with. It wasn’t a great idea to start with by taking a product with bogus claims into the mainstream like that. But John Wadsworth, founder and president of Tahitian Noni International, has also done away with Mr. Olsen by moving him to a board position and out of harm’s way. In Feb 09 the new management team was presented by Mr. Wadsworth and that team no longer included Mr. Olson. The new team consists of Robert G. Johnson (executive VP), Jeff Hill (VP of sales and marketing), Charlie Smith (VP of operations) Seth Miller (VP of global markets), Randall Smith (VP and CFO), and Richard Rife (VP and general counsel).

What about Mr. Kerry Asay, though? We’ll get to him in a minute.

There is no doubt that this new team will not be able to turn the tide and further layoffs, closing of foreign offices and cost cutting is not going to make much difference. John Wadsworth returned from a mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS, a.k.a. the Mormon Church) and has made it his mission to attempt to clean up TNI’s act but that is not the only thing going on in the private domain of Mr. Wadsworth. Certainly there’s a lot more going on in the private domain of Mr. Asay.

While the two of them attempted to undo the damage inflicted by Olson, without much success, and while having TNI and Noni products at the center of massive turmoil and losses in their network nobody has been paying attention to a new player in the market named MAAKOA. Perhaps all the attempts at having TNI look busy and healthy are a cover for the next jump point for yet another product that shares much of the same “miracle wonders” as Noni Juice pretended to provide. Is Kerry Asay funding this new company? How much is Kerry Asay involved in it? Let’s explore!

• Did you know that Kerry has a daughter, Kara Asay?
• Did you know that Kara is married to Kimble Smith?
• Did you know that Kimble Smith is a founder and the head of product development for MAAKOA?

Don’t take our word for it, look it up. It’s public information. Even on MAAKOA’s own site it says, “Kimble and his wife Kara live in Orem, Utah with their son Asay”.

Kara and Kimble’s son’s name is no doubt a way to keep the Asay name in the family. But what else is being kept in the family when MAAKOA has all the appearance of being the next TNI, the next MLM to go that route, the next company to have legions of brainwashed drinkers that believe in the miracle powers, the next company to have legions of scam artists selling the juice by making illegal medical and health claims? Is Kerry Asay involved in helping the family by betraying the other so-called family? Or is he just involved to create his next executive position when TNI falls to the ground and doesn’t get up?

Experts have looked at the Facebook fan profile of MAAKOA and found that approximately 70 percent of the “friends” of MAAKOA used to be, or currently still are, TNI distributors.

Maakoa is selling a purple Noni-like bottle called Koopuwa that is claimed to be a bland of Brazilian Cupuaçu, Açai, and other “super fruits” bursting with “phytonutrients” and antioxidants. What an amazing surprise, another “mystical” fruit from a far-away land, squeezed into a bottle. Other Maakoa related resources tell us that a bottle of Koopuwa contains Purified Water, Cupuacu (puree), Acai (powder and puree), Apple Juice, Red Grape Juice, Pear Juice, Wolfberry Juice, Yum Berry Juice, Blueberry Juice, Red Raspberry Juice, Pomegranate Juice Ascorbic Acid, Sodium Benzoate (as a preservative, E211)

Wolfberry Juice is also often referred to as Goji Juice. But what is even more surprising is the addition of Sodium Benzoate which in combination with ascorbic acid (vitamin C, E300), sodium benzoate and potassium benzoate may form benzene, a known carcinogen.

And already the testimonials are flowing, as you can see on the Maakoa website, “My Pain is Gone! Since 1992 my heart and immune system have given me problems…” and “Unable to exercise for most of 16 years, I am now working out in the gym with my husband. In 30 years in natural health, I have never seen anything so effective.” And that testimonial is credited to someone named Kara.

We probably won’t have to tell you that the offices of Maakoa are also in Orem, Utah. Where else would an MLM ‘juice company’ be headquartered? It’s so obvious that even a blind person could see this coming a mile away.

Update 5th of October: Mr. Kimble Smith has responded (see first comment on this post) saying that he does not work for Maakoa. And it appears he no longer does. However, at the time of writing of the above, a Mr. Kimble Smith (married to Kara and living in Orem, UT with their son Asay) did work at Maakoa. Since we are accused of not doing our homework we will present a small part of that homework here. Click on the image below to see the full page as it was prior to Maakoa removing the picture and description of “Kimble Smith, Vice President of Product Development & Manufacturing”: (here is another version of the site)

Or what about Kimble, described as “one of our Fearless Maakoa leaders”, taking one for the team? Or perhaps this one, The Leadership Staff include Bruce Davis, David Simpson, Todd Kirkpatrick, Jeff Bruning, Kimble Smith and Jerry Nelson? Or this page?

The admin name for the domain registration of Maakoa.org was, guess who, Kimble Smith. Prior to it changing registration details to Bruce Davis and Jeff Bruning:

Maybe we should look at the Linked-In profile of Mr. Kimble Smith (click the image for a larger page):

And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to homework. Granted, discovering that there are more people named Kara on the planet should be no surprise, however, we never claimed that the testimonial being referred to was written by Kara Smith. We just pointed out the name and the testimonial. Anyone else can follow the same homework and find a lot of the rest that we don’t have time posting about. Just use the internet. Search engines are your friend.