NutraBio isn't the most famous name in the supplement industry, but it's not a new company. With 21 years in operation, this company has been quietly leading the pack in some of the most important supplement standards.
To gain better insight into NutraBio and what this company is all about, we sat down with the founder, Mark Glazier, to get his thoughts on some important questions.
Thanks, Mark, for being available to help give us a closer look into your company and where you're currently going. Please give us a bit of background information on yourself.
My entire life has revolved around performance athletics and nutrition. I started training in martial arts when I was 6 years old and began weightlifting at 12. The two combined set me down a lifelong path, and barely a day has gone by since that first karate class 48 years ago that I haven’t been either on the mat or training in the gym. I started teaching karate when I was 14 and opened my own schools in the '80s. By the '90s, the schools had grown to include thousands of students. It was during that time that I became interested in nutrition.
I learned how dietary supplements helped fighters; I could see marked improvements in strength, endurance, recovery time, and body weight. I decided that I wanted to focus my career on supplements.
How and why was NutraBio first started?
When I launched NutraBio back in 1996, it was originally called NutraBiotics. For the first 18 years, we sold strictly to the consumer, so few people knew who we were. I started like everyone else: using contract manufacturers to help formulate and make my products.
About five years in, I tried to reformulate my products to remove all proprietary blends, because I'm very passionate about full disclosure. After considerable research, I realized that all my products were underdosed. I tossed out hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of supplements just because they weren't up to par.
It was a devastating time, but one that I feel helped form the philosophy that our company is based upon today: to live without compromise. This showed our commitment to putting out products with no proprietary blends and only full therapeutic dosages.
It was on that day that I changed the name to NutraBio and made the industry-first commitment to no proprietary blends and full therapeutic dosages. I also committed to no fillers. NutriBio began manufacturing the products ourselves so we could control the quality of the supplements. It’s now 16 years later, and NutraBio has over 300 products in our line, none of which contain a single proprietary blend or underdosed ingredient.
What do you feel sets NutraBio apart from other supplement companies out there?
We want consumers to know exactly what they're buying. NutriBio is now a fully disclosed label, which means we share the dosage of not only every active ingredient but every inactive ingredient like the flavors and sweeteners. With our proteins, we disclose the dosage of each protein source and how much complete usable protein comes from that source. We were the first no-prop-blend brand, and now we are the first fully disclosed, fully transparent brand.
The fact that we manufacture our own supplements also sets us apart. I have nothing against contract manufacturers; I just don’t believe anyone cares about my customers as much as I do. By manufacturing myself, I control every aspect of the quality. Every finished product must also pass third-party lab testing before it leaves my facility.
What is your current top-selling product?
We launched the first-ever 100% whey protein isolate 21 years ago, and we’ve been improving it ever since. It’s a clean, great-tasting protein with no additives other than flavoring. PRE and Intra Blast are also core sellers.
Do you have any new up-and-coming products you can tell us about?
Our newest concept at NutraBio is the launch of CheckMySupps.com, a website that gives our customers instant access to third-party lab results for our supplements. You just enter the lot number right off the bottle, and an independent lab report will show you exactly what’s in our products. BodyBuilding.com will have it built into our product pages as well. It’s a bold and expensive move on our part, just like our commitment to no prop blends back in 2001, but we believe consumers should know exactly what they are putting in their body.
How do you feel the supplement industry is changing? What trends do you see coming into play in today's supplement world?
The supplement industry is in a renaissance right now. Over the past few years, more brands have launched with real dosages and more disclosure to the consumer. People are becoming more educated and demanding cleaner products, less fillers, and more ingredient disclosure. They are sick of hype and BS; they want the truth, and some great new brands with passionate owners are stepping up and giving it to them. I don’t see these brands as my competitors; I see them as partners working together to better the industry for all of us.