Innovation and Integrity: Pioneering High Manufacturing Standards for Market Leadership

Today we talk with Johann Gorsek, Marketing Manager at one of the most successful supplement manufacturers in the world. With over 70 products under their own brand, Nature’s Lab, and contract manufacturing relationships with industry giants like Walmart and Costco, they stand out for their commitment to quality. 

In this episode, Johann shares invaluable insights into their unique manufacturing processes, the importance of clinically studied ingredients and maintaining high standards, and how to build customer loyalty. You’ll also hear about some of their standout products like the Turmeric Plus Joint Complex. 

Tune in now to discover how their adherence to cutting-edge health research and superior manufacturing processes has propelled their success in a competitive market - and discover insights that can accelerate your business success.

In today’s episode of Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover: 

• The value of honesty and integrity in starting and scaling your product business.
•  How contract manufacturing works, and how it differs from private-label.
• How to choose the right manufacturing partner to work with.
• How to prepare for and capitalize on growth opportunities.

 
To learn more about Nature’s Lab dietary supplements and to get a free sample, visit www.natureslabgold.com now!

To be a guest on our next podcast, contact us today!

Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands totaling over $2 billion in revenues? Visit HarvestGrowth.com and set up a free consultation with us today!

Transcript

Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
Today's guest is from one of the most successful supplement manufacturers in the world. They market over 70 of their own products, and they also do contract manufacturing for Walmart, Costco, and many other Fortune 500 retailers. Learn how quality has helped them to grow exponentially and how you can incorporate it into your own business.

Announcer [00:00:19]:
Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now here's the host of the Harvest Growth podcast, Jon LaClare.

Jon LaClare [00:00:40]:
Welcome back to the show. Today I'm really excited to be speaking with Johann Gorsek, and he's the Marketing Manager with a good client of ours, nature's lab. You can find them at natureslab.com. Their parent company is Doctor Vita V I T A. We'll talk more about the company, what they do, what makes them different, and a lot of learnings that I think you can probably take into your own business as you're trying to grow as well. So, Johan, first of all, thank you for joining today.

Johann Gorsek [00:01:06]:
Yeah, thank you, Jon, for having me on. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to educating some of your audience about vitamins and supplements.

Jon LaClare [00:01:13]:
Fantastic. So your business is really focused in two different areas, and we'll talk a little bit about both of them. One is marketing your own products under the nature's lab brand, as well as contract manufacturing from any other brand under nature's lab. I believe you said there's over 70 different skus or different products just under that brand that you guys market directly to consumers, correct?

Johann Gorsek [00:01:36]:
That's correct. We do 70 products under nature's lab and nature's lab gold. All these are efficaciously formulated and are very effective for our clients that do use them.

Jon LaClare [00:01:47]:
Agreed. And I'm not only an interviewer and marketer for the business, but also a user of the product. So one of the ones that we've spent a lot of time on together is the Turmeric plus joint complex, which is a fantastic product. I hit the age of 50 last year, I shouldn't admit, maybe in public, but because of that, I start to feel my joints. And as I get older, man, you just need these things to help. And I've tried a lot of different products, and this is really by far the best one I've had for personal use. And I'd like to, for our audience's sake, for those that are watching or if you're listening over your podcast, headphones, car speakers, whatever it might be, you can still hear it. I'm gonna play the two minute tv spot for the Turmeric plus joint complex product and you'll hear in this there's a free sample offer.

Jon LaClare [00:02:35]:
This has been something we can dive into a little bit of why do that? How it helps to market and grow a supplement brand, but also to listen to how this product is so great, the features and benefits, et cetera, and some of the market angles we've used. So let's pause for a second and watch this video together.

Voiceover [00:02:51]:
Now you can claim a complimentary bottle of Nature's lab gold turmeric plus joint complex by visiting natureslabgold.com dot.

Voiceover [00:02:59]:
Over time, wear and tear can take a toll on your joints, leading to discomfort and limited mobility. Nature's lab gold Turmeric plus joint complex supports your joint health and keeps you moving with ease. Through our unique blend of ancient herbs and modern science, this powerful formula targets the root causes of joint discomfort.

Jon LaClare [00:03:21]:
After taking Nature's lab gold turmeric plus joint complex, which a few days, I noticed a significant improvement in my joint discomfort. Now I can enjoy my favorite activities again.

Voiceover [00:03:32]:
Nature's lab proudly manufactures over 100 top quality, five star rated supplements in our USP certified and audited lab in Nevada with full in house testing, research and development. Turmeric, renowned for its antioxidant properties, has been a staple in traditional medicine for centuries. Our product features the number one clinically studied curcumin brand with over 70 clinical curcumin c three complex studies. Nature's lab gold turmeric plus joint complex is a powerful six in one formula designed to enhance joint health. Our unique blend includes patented curcumin c three complex, clinically stable biocell, collagen, MSM and bio pairing. This combination supports collagen rejuvenation at the cellular level, ensuring optimal joint skin and connective tissue health.

Johann Gorsek [00:04:30]:
I feel more mobile and flexible. Nature's lab gold turmeric plus joint complex it combines ancient herbs with modern science.

Voiceover [00:04:39]:
To get your complimentary bottle of nature's lab gold turmeric plus joint complex now, visit natureslabgoal.com. this limited time offer won't last long, so go to natureslabgoal.com now.

Jon LaClare [00:04:52]:
Well, that was a lot of fun to produce, but let's talk about the free sample offer, Johan, that you guys are now doing for the turmeric plus joint complex. Why did you originally choose to go out with a free offer well, one.

Johann Gorsek [00:05:05]:
Of the main benefits of a free offer is that we're able to provide all of our consumers the opportunity to try out our product for themselves and see if it actually works for them. So if that opportunity, you know, you can try it out without having to take the risk of losing out your money. But fortunately, this product is a fantastic product and you'll be able to use it with great effectiveness for not only your joints, but many of the other problems inflammation causes.

Jon LaClare [00:05:35]:
So as I mentioned, I'm not just a marketer with you to help grow the business, but also a user of the turmeric and many other products. What I've found is they're different. I feel different, at least when I use them, versus competitors. You mentioned quality. That comes back to the fact that you manufacture in house. Can you talk a little bit more about how nature's lab gold from a manufacturing perspective is so different from other supplement manufacturers?

Johann Gorsek [00:05:58]:
Yeah, absolutely. So we do everything in house. So that's a very significant factor to the quality of your products. We control it from start to finish, including freight lab encapsulation blending. We do custom blends for our consumers to give the best product available. And then we lab test in house with the latest equipment from suppliers that provide equipment for purity, potency, mold, you name it, any quality defects, and then we freight it out to you and sealed bottles so that way you can get a very quality product from start to finish. That's one of the key differentiations of our product. And also using the right ingredients.

Johann Gorsek [00:06:46]:
It's so critical to use clinically studied ingredients. A lot of companies, and you'll see this on Amazon, especially Amazon, but our outlets as well, that they'll put in their product, let's call it a root powder or something along those lines. That's just simply not effective to clinical studies. So nature's lab provides supplements that are not only manufactured in house in USA, but uses clinically studied ingredients from the raw material suppliers themselves.

Jon LaClare [00:07:19]:
It does make a big difference. And I know a lot of our listeners are supplement marketers that may be looking for a new contract manufacturer or just advice on how to do their business better. Right. And really a lot of things we can talk about whether they're supplement manufacturers or marketers or not. But as you mentioned, we gotta be careful as we buy supplements as well from Amazon. Even if they've got a lot of good reviews, a lot of those might be sort of seeded reviews right where they've sent them out for free, or there's ways to kind of work the system. And with supplements. For some people it may be hard to sort of tell, but they get incentive to leave a positive review.

Jon LaClare [00:07:52]:
But long term usage, they end up stop using them cause they're not effective. And you mentioned with root powders as an example, but probably any ingredient or any major ingredient, what causes a difference from a testing perspective, both in house as well as clinical, to make sure that your quality of your ingredients is right and effective, but also the amount of ingredients, I know both of those can impact whether a supplement actually works or not.

Johann Gorsek [00:08:19]:
Yeah. So when we start our new product development process, we look right at the clinical study, the raw data on what works and what doesn't work. We look at us, healthy population. So in my time here, I've seen studies from Iran that people are using for their products, and that's just not necessarily our audience. I'm sure whatever vitamins they make over there works for them. But the us people are different. So you'll have companies using either no science or bad science, and we just don't believe in that. And then as you pointed out, the lab testing of the science.

Johann Gorsek [00:08:57]:
So when it comes in our house, let's say turmeric, you have curcuminoids. We measure and you have to measure how active the product actually is. So, for example, if that product has 500 milligrams curcuminoids, ours is 950. You need to make sure it actually has 950 milligrams of curcuminoids, not only from an efficacious point of view or effectiveness, but from a regulatory point of view. Because if a consumer, let's say, decides to lab test your product and you're cutting them short and maybe you don't even know it, that could be a lot of regulatory issues for you. And then you're not doing the right thing by giving your consumer a good product. So all this matters, especially when you're selling supplements.

Jon LaClare [00:09:45]:
Absolutely. And for anybody listening or watching, you can check out their full line of products@natureslab.com. again, over 70 skus. If you're interested in talking to Johan or his team about potentially contract manufacturing or just learning from that side of the business, that is evaneutra.com comma evanutra.com as well. So both of those will include in the show notes. I think I forgot to mention it as well. But if you'd like to take part of the free trial sample of the turmeric plus joint complex product that we showed the video for, that one will have a link in the show notes as well. So if you're driving, don't worry about writing all this down.

Jon LaClare [00:10:19]:
Go check it out afterwards@harvestgrowthpodcast.com. dot you can get all the details and find out about the free sample or other products. So there are some other products we're working on together that we can talk about briefly also. Johan, and maybe what makes these different from some of the competition. I'd love we could let's talk about the products briefly and then let's get into the marketing side of it and why these have been so successful, these and other products from a retail perspective as well. So one, we've got the turmeric extract product, magnesium glycinate that we're working on together, coq ten as well as a one daily multivitamin as well. So what makes these products unique and special as well?

Johann Gorsek [00:10:59]:
Well, there's many reasons why each of those products does their function very good. The turmeric extract contains c three complex, which is the most studied, clinically studied turmeric on the marketplace. It's actually featured in our turmeric joint complex. So you don't necessarily need to take both if you're already taking one. And then your magnesium glycinate, that's a very important mineral. Over 90% of the us population is lacking in it. And you know, that's a cause. That's because of our agriculture practices and diets.

Johann Gorsek [00:11:36]:
In today's world, it's very hard to get the actual meaningful nutrients out of your diet. So that's why supplements become important. And vitamins such as the one daily, which have all of your supplements, your essential vitamins, your macro, your micro minerals and vitamins, you get that in the one daily to a very clinically studied dosage. So this is why all these supplements are important at the end of the day is our lifestyles are becoming harder to achieve a natural balance. It's harder to be healthy. I mean, office jobs, for example, John and I know all about it. You're sitting in a chair 1012 hours a day with a keyboard. You have so much potential outside, but you can't because the society makes you sit at a desk and that's fine.

Johann Gorsek [00:12:25]:
But unfortunately, some of the consequences are you're going to need to take care of your health and other matters such as supplements and maybe just going on a walk.

Jon LaClare [00:12:34]:
I think you're right. And it's, you know, as we think back to 5100 years ago and even longer. Right. So as a people, we worked outside a lot. We're in the sunshine, getting vitamin d, et cetera, but working physical jobs as well. And I love what I do, but most days, like you, you said it's not physical. And I think that's a lot of people, not everybody listening, of course, right. But that physicality, the exposure to sunlight, but also fresh diets.

Jon LaClare [00:13:00]:
Right. Food is very plentiful now compared to where you have to fight for our food. Right. The further you go back into history. But when you got it, maybe a lot of it at least was more complete nutritionally than what we get today. And so just supplementing with other things, with supplements themselves, to be able to have a better diet, to feel better, to feel more energy, and really to have longevity and health in your life. I couldn't agree more. From a contract manufacturing perspective, I guess what makes Evoneutra different from competitors out there? There's a lot of contract manufacturers.

Jon LaClare [00:13:32]:
If you just go to Google and look for a supplement manufacturer or contract manufacturer, it's hard to make a decision on who to go to. You and I have talked about this. I know some of your benefits that make you so much better than anybody else out there. But if you could share with our audience what makes, what makes Evaneutra, that contract manufacturing side of your business so special.

Johann Gorsek [00:13:51]:
Well, contract manufacturing is a totally different ballgame than private label. Private label. You're talking about having clinically studied dosages this and that. With contract manufacturing, it's all about making proctise spec as fast as you can for as cheaply as you can. And, you know, thankfully, we're very good at that as well. So we provide some of the world's largest retailers those capabilities, and we offer some limits, some exclusive features and capabilities as a brand, as a Nava neutral brand. One of them is our USP audit. This is the original auditor for pharmaceutical companies.

Johann Gorsek [00:14:29]:
We're one of the only people, I think the only in the industry that actually has it. In the nutraceutical side, most people have NSF, NSF is fine, but they're not necessarily the most superior way, I'll tell you transparently. The USP audit was significantly harder, to the point where we're like, are we even going to make it? Thankfully, we did. But the NSF audit felt not as complete or comprehensive as the USP, which makes sense. NSF does a lot of different things, too. You know, they do automotive, they do, they do vitamins and supplements, they do like toothbrushes and things like that. So their scope is a lot larger. So it makes sense they maybe can't fit vitamins and supplements as commonly.

Johann Gorsek [00:15:16]:
So given the USP audits, which we have about once a year, and then they do unannounced audit checks and quality checks, it provides a level of guarantee to our customers that we're giving the best product possible for people who want to maybe start their own brand or establish players such as the world's largest retailers.

Jon LaClare [00:15:37]:
And are you able to share some of the retailers that use Avaneutra for contract manufacturing?

Johann Gorsek [00:15:44]:
Yeah. So we do Walmart, Costco, Vitamin Shop, a few private labels that are very large and expansive. We do our own brand and we do a lot of other companies as well. Those are significant ones. I can think on the top of my head. I mean, they're big players in the vitamin supplement world.

Jon LaClare [00:16:07]:
Yeah, no, absolutely. And they're going to vet much more than the average consumer. Right. So we're all so hurried and rushed to figure out what brand supplement we should trust, et cetera. When Costco or Walmart comes knocking, they are checking everybody to get the absolute best that they possibly can at a good price. Right. At a good value, but making sure that the testing is there, the ingredients are there. The hard part is not knowing which specific supplements at a retailer might be from a trusted supplier like you versus somebody else that may not be as good, may not be certified in the right ways.

Jon LaClare [00:16:38]:
The nice thing with nature's lab is any supplement you find on the website is, you know, it's done at your facilities right to the utmost of quality, etcetera. Well, this has been a lot of fun, Johan. You've done a great job, I think, explaining the value of your business and how that has really led to the success of both nature's lab as well as Evernutri, through really getting high quality ingredients, through getting testing done, and really promoting those in a way that gets the word out so consumers like me and an everyday consumer can really understand them. Is there anything I didn't ask that you think could be helpful for our audience?

Johann Gorsek [00:17:16]:
There's plenty of things that could be talked about, but I think most importantly, you know, just on a one on one personal level, is actually doing the research when you're deciding to take supplements or not. You could ask your doctor. You could do actual research on your own, such as looking at the clinical studies. I know it's a bothersome task, but I highly recommend it. The things you'll learn about supplements as a whole and your own body are so much more significant when you actually look at the raw data from where the doctors are coming together to produce a result from herbs and vitamins and minerals. That's one of the big things. And then also being, you know, I'm not a big fan of the word luck. I think luck is a product of hard work and smart work.

Johann Gorsek [00:18:11]:
You know, when we got some of the largest retailers, it was not necessarily being in the right place at the right time, although it did matter. But it's about being ready for them, about passing their quality checks, about bringing value to them. And, you know, for some of our retailers, it's a lot different than our own brand even. And that's especially in our world, the supplement world, in terms of formulas, that's what that could. That is a very big differentiator between product x and product y.

Jon LaClare [00:18:45]:
That's a great advice. Again, whatever business our listeners may be in, whether it's supplements or really anything else, I love how you talked about luck. You know, at the end of the day, as everybody looks back on their big successes, feels like luck. But you've got to be prepared for those moments. And part of that, in your case, of course, is being able to have the testing in place, the quality there, so when the timing arises, you're truly ready for it. So putting in the work, putting in the effort, making quality of utmost importance, whatever your business is, that's fantastic advice for everybody. So thank you. On I do want to encourage our audience.

Jon LaClare [00:19:18]:
Please check out natureslab.com or evaneuture.com if you're interested in contract manufacturing. But on natureslab.com comma, you'll also find a lot of these studies that Johan is mentioning that talk about the different ingredients. So learn along the way to make educated decisions on really what to put into your own body, to make sure that you're healthier, right, that we're all here longer and enjoying our lives that much more. Well, thanks again, Johan. I really enjoyed our time together.

Johann Gorsek [00:19:43]:
Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask for me when you contact our support line. And thank you so much again for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Jon LaClare [00:19:55]:
Did you know you can meet with a member of my team absolutely free for a 30 minutes strategy consultation? We've launched and grown hundreds of products since 2007 and learned some of our strategies while growing Oxiclean back in the Billy Mays days. We're here to help. So please go to harvestgrowth.com and set up a call if you'd like to discuss further.