Nadia Bartel’s white powder scandal inspired new wellness brand Life Botanics

Nadia Bartel’s Kmart plate scandal cost her a lucrative wellness brand ambassadorship, but inspired this new business.

Nadia Bartel’s white powder scandal cost her a lucrative vitamin ambassadorship — but inspired ex-MasterChef contestant Jimmy Seervai wellness brand, Life Botanics.

When Nadia Bartel was dumped and “publicly shamed” by wellness sponsor JS Health for hoovering up cocaine on a Kmart plate last year, Jimmy Seervai was so disgusted he created vitamin company Life Botanics as a competitor.

Say what?

The former MasterChef finalist is the founder of Essence Group, a company that manufactures sports nutrition and supplements for supermarkets such as Woolworths and Coles.

Seervai had been debating whether to start his own brand to take on the big-name vitamin labels, who he says are overpricing at eye-watering rates.

Think brand tax and the illusion of a shiny lifestyle.

But it was Bartel’s Kmart plate moment that was the final, er, straw.

“We had looked at the cost but I thought I’ll just park it for now, Seervai told Page 13.

“Then one of the JS Health brand ambassadors was caught doing drugs.

Jodi Gordon is the ambassador for Life Botanics.

“The way JS Health treated her, dropping her so publicly, I thought bugger it, I’ll launch my own product. So it was a direct result.”

Next week he will launch the full range of vitamins, already selling at Coles, with ambassador Jodi Gordon.

In a somewhat ironic twist, trouble-prone Gordon has made headlines herself, battling her own demons and booking herself into rehab for drug and alcohol-related issues.

But Life Botanics stood by her and as Gordon says she is more focused on her health than ever with vitamins at the core of her wellness regimen. Now that’s marketing. This is not the first outbreak of hostilities on what are being dubbed the vitamin wars.