DELVE

S5 | Powder Keg | Ep 6: Marketing Mania
Joe Rogan is one of the world’s wealthiest influencers – and we’re told AG1 is one of his best clients, paying him about $10 million a year to promote its popular green powder. Scientist Dr Andrew Huberman gets about $2 million. Gwyneth Paltrow, Formula 1’s Sir Lewis Hamilton, Olympic champion Allyson Felix … the list goes on. AG1 is the OG of influencer marketing; it spends more on audio than just about any other company in the world. But are the company and its well-paid ambassadors being upfront? Some customers say they’ve been persuaded to drink a supplement that they now believe has impacted their health. The Food and Drug Administration has had 118 reports of harm from AG1 users and their doctors, this year alone. Each episode is available first to subscribers to DELVE+. To listen early and ad-free to this show, to our bonus episodes, and to award-winning podcast The Boy in the Water and Melanie Reid’s latest investigation, Fractured, sign up to DELVE+. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
41:08
S5 | Powder Keg | Ep 5: A Flop And A Skip
A leaked recording reveals the Kiwi founder of billion-dollar supplements firm AG1 misrepresented his criminal history in public statements and in a meeting with the company’s president and staff, just this year. Chris Ashenden’s high-powered American lawyer claimed he had never been charged with a crime, or convicted of a crime, or been the subject of an arrest warrant – but none of those things was correct. We listen to the recording alongside Anita Mika, who lost her home in Chris’s property scheme. Her sister also lost her home – but she died without seeing justice done. ‘We can forgive, but we never forget,’ Anita says. Each episode is available first to subscribers to DELVE+. To listen early and ad-free to this show, to our bonus episodes, and to award-winning podcast The Boy in the Water and Melanie Reid’s latest investigation, Fractured, sign up to DELVE+. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
39:33
S5 | Powder Keg | Ep 4: The Antagonists
Travelling to New Zealand’s southernmost city, with a chill wind that feels like it’s blowing off Antarctica, we discover it was a woman named Dee Chisholm who first blew the whistle on Chris the Kiwi’s criminal property schemes. But tracking her down won’t be easy…until we drive out to a small remote mining village called Nightcaps. Everyone has secrets. And in this episode, we finally meet the protagonists – some might call them antagonists – who faced off in former police officer Chris Ashenden’s first clash with the law. It won’t be his last…the story of AG1, the world’s favourite green powder supplement, is blowing up big. Each episode is available first to subscribers to DELVE+. To listen early and ad-free to this show, to our bonus episodes, and to award-winning podcast The Boy in the Water and Melanie Reid’s latest investigation, Fractured, sign up to DELVE+. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
29:24
S5 | Powder Keg | Ep 3: The Asshole Of The World
We track down families who lost their homes in 'Chris the Kiwi’ Ashenden’s property dealings. And what happens next is what Powder Keg, the podcast, is all about – Ashenden, his unorthodox billion-dollar business and his magical mystery powder. All we know is that his company AG1 is headquartered at an address in Carson City, Nevada. If it comes to the crunch and he doesn’t front, we’ll need to go there to talk with the company’s founder. What we didn’t know is the story of criminal offending that will emerge – a story that Chris the Kiwi didn’t want told. Listen to the first 3 episodes now. Episode 4 is available first to subscribers to DELVE+. To listen early and ad-free to this show, to our bonus episodes, and to award-winning podcast The Boy in the Water and Melanie Reid’s latest investigation, Fractured, sign up to DELVE+. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
30:48
S5 | Powder Keg | Ep 2: The Untold NZ Story
When investigative journalist Jonathan Milne started slugging back an expensive, vivid green AG1 shake every morning to get in shape for his 50th birthday, he knew what the company’s chief science officer said – that the green powder product would make him healthier. What he didn’t know about were the adverse reports to the Food and Drug Administration of liver damage, nor of the scrutiny by the courts, and now of a national regulator. Episodes 1 and 2 of Powder Keg are live now, with Episode 3 also available for subscribers to DELVE+. To listen early and ad-free to this show, to our bonus episodes, and to award-winning podcast The Boy in the Water and Melanie Reid’s latest investigation, Fractured, sign up to DELVE+. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
26:48

DELVE SERIES 5 - POWDER KEG: Some stories grow from a green shoot; some explode like a powder keg. The global supplement market is worth $200 billion a year, and Chris Ashenden is a rock star of the industry. Yet in his home country of New Zealand, nobody had heard of him. Investigative journalist Jonathan Milne wanted to tell his story – but when Chris proved elusive, alarm bells began to ring. In the latest electrifying podcast from DELVE, we investigate the superstar endorsements, the science and the safety of the world’s favourite green powder, AG1. Listen to a story that will entangle the biggest names in audio, from Joe Rogan to Andrew Huberman to Gwyneth Paltrow. We follow the money, dig into the crimes and commission our own lab analysis. From the chill of the Southern Ocean to a record Mexican heatwave, from Colombia to the Caribbean, we chase down AG1’s founder to tell the story he didn’t want told. Only on DELVE, the home of gripping, in-depth investigative podcasts, including award-winning The Boy in the Water, and Fractured.Sign up to our premium service DELVE+ on Apple, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform. DELVE+ subscribers get Early Release, Ad Free listening.Led by investigations editor, Melanie Reid. Listen to journalism that matters.Discover more on the Melanie Reid Investigates Facebook and Instagram pages, and on Newsroom.co.nz.(Android and Spotify listeners can Sign up to DELVE+ here.)DELVE SERIES 4 - FRACTURED SEASON 1: A baby taken, a mother jailed, a couple forced apart and facing deportation without their daughter. Crushed by the weight of multiple government departments working in lockstep, what happens when the dream of a new country becomes an unimaginable nightmare? In this new investigation, Melanie Reid and her team take the x-rays that were used to convict a young mother and put them before international experts, who tell us this case is just the tip of the iceberg of a factitious medical phenomenon leading to injustice around the globe.DELVE SERIES 1-3 - THE BOY IN THE WATER SEASONS 1-3: Melanie Reid's chart topping podcast takes you inside a small town harbouring a big mystery. After the lifeless body of three-year-old Lachie Jones is found floating in an oxidation pond in the Southland town of Gore, police rule his death a tragic accident. But nothing is what it seems. Melanie has spent three years covering this case, revealing multiple flaws in the police investigation and uncovering new evidence that casts serious doubt about the circumstances surrounding Lachie’s death. In The Boy in the Water, Melanie unravels the case – and the secrets – in an attempt to find out what really happened to little Lachie Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Podcast-Website