100+ Supplement/Vitamin Brands Bought Out By Large Companies

Ever wonder who owns your favorite probiotic, vitamin, and dietary supplement brands?? You might be surprised how often brands get bought out and controlled by other companies! Here’s a compiling of 27 major coporations or equity firms that have acquired over 100 nutrition brands! You might be surprised at what you find.

First, let’s talk about what this means when a company get’s bought out or “acquired”, the impact that potentially has on the company, and what to look out for if a brand gets bought out!

So what does It mean When Brands Get Acquired?⁣⁣⁣

“An acquisition is when one company purchases most or all of another company’s shares to gain control of that company. Purchasing more than 50% of a target firm’s stock and other assets allows the acquirer to make decisions about the newly acquired assets without the approval of the company’s shareholders”⁣⁣⁣

Why does this matter?⁣⁣⁣

Knowing what kind of company now has control of another, helps to better informs us when choosing what brands to buy. As I always say, brand researching is SO important when determining if a brand or product is “nontoxic” or “clean”! There’s SO much more then just ingredients that determine safety!!

Looking at what other brands these companies manage, what the priorities of the companies are, who has the final say in ingredient sourcing etc provides a piece of the puzzle when knowing who to trust and who not to.

Is it good or bad that a brand get’s acquired?

Good for that company’s bottom line because it means their potential for growth just went up exponentially! Potentially bad for their customers concerned about the brand or recipes staying the same. ⁣⁣⁣
When a bigger company takes over, ingredient sourcing often can change now that they have access to more suppliers which could be good or bad. It makes more financial sense for companies that already have their own manufacturing, vendors they supply from etc to just add the acquired company to what they already do. This could potentially degrade the quality and purity of the product depending on what regulations they are being diligent to follow, how carefully they vet raw material suppliers, what ingredients those larger companies are fine with using etc.

The likelihood of no longer disclosing all ingredients is probable for the sake of other companies not copying recipes as they get bigger…I.e “natural flavors”.⁣ It’s also likely for formulas to change to save money since the bottom line often times trumps all else.

I’ll throw out there that stories like this one, really affirm from a front lines perspective how sad it is and how the quality of products really do degrade after an acquisition.

The main concern to me when a brand sells out, is that they no longer have the final say when it comes to their brand. Even if the founder is still around and wants to help the brand’s integrity remain, if the acquiring company wants to change something. Tough. You don’t have the final say anymore, ergo the power to stop a change from happening. You gave up that right. They want to change sourcing to a lesser quality ingredient? Oh well. Depending on the terms of the acquisition, you get little to no say at all.

This could be worrisome in some cases more then others depending on what the larger company’s priority is. That is often determined by whether or not they are public or private.

Private vs Public Owned

This is a huge point I don’t want you to miss when trying to determine whether or not to trust a company. If a company, or the larger company that acquired a company, is “private”, that means they aren’t traded on the stock market. If it’s “public” that means they are traded on the stock market and shares can be purchased. This GREATLY effects the integrity of the company.

In any buyout, of course the larger company wants it to be profitable for them, but if they are private there’s less people to please, if you will. If a company is public, funding is mostly coming from shareholders…so what’s their main goal? Pleasing the shareholders. And what’s the shareholders only objective? Making money. See the problem here?

Keep in mind, equity firms often acquire companies, but they can be either private or public. Also, a company can sellout to a larger company that’s still privately held.

So, it’s less about “large” vs “small” companies, and more about publically vs privately held.

A great website by the way for checking this are just business websites in general, but my favorite is Crunchbase.

Should you boycott these brands now?⁣⁣⁣

Maybe. Maybe not. That’s ultimately up to you. There’s a possibility nothing will change in the products themselves and there’s many factors to consider. I’d encourage you to just do extra research & make a decision that works best for you & your family!⁣⁣⁣

What To Lookout For:

• Is the acquiring company public or privately held?
• What other companies do they manage? Are they like minded?
• Ingredient/label/formula changes or major website terminology changes
  i.e are there more green washing or vague terms? Did they go from disclosing all ingredients on their labels and website to just putting “fragrance”?⁣
• Changes in staff within the company. To give an example, when Native, the clean deodorant company sold out, the original founder stayed on for a while but has now left and one of P&G’s people has now taken over completely (right around the time all the labels changed)
  ⁣
  Changes I wouldn’t worry about as much:⁣
• website or logo look/ redesign ⁣
• price of products changing
  (These are more normal/expected now that they have more resources & don’t necessarily mean they are no longer “safe”)⁣

Ok, now on to the brands!!

100+ Nutrition Brands That Are Owned By Big Corporations

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Clorox:

• Rainbow Light
• Neocell
• Renew Life
• Natural Vitality (popular for their CALM drink)
• Champion Performance
• Stop Aging Now
• True Health

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Nestle:

• Unda
• Garden of Life
• Pure Encapsulations
• Klean Athlete
• Genestra
• Body Fortress
• Pharmax
• AOV
• Douglas Labs
• Minami
• Orthica
• Wobenzym
• Dr. Organic
• Sundown Naturals
• Solgar
• Osteo Bi-Flex
• Sisu
• Met-Rx
• Persona
• Vital Proteins
• Nature’s Bounty
• Spring Valley

• Ester-C
• Puritan’s Pride
• Pure Protein

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Bayer:

• Care / of
• Move Free
• One A Day
• MegaRed
• Digestive Advantage
• Schiff Nutrition
• Airborne
• Neuriva

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by HGGC:

• Natural Balance
• All One
• Nature’s Life
• Zand
• Thompson
• Natural Sport
• KAL
• Dynamic Health
• Solaray
• Zhou
• Life Time
• Natural Care

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by DSM:

• Culturelle
• Up4
• Ovega -3
• AZO
• Estroven
• Brainstrong
• Life’s DHA

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by P&G:

• Bion 3
• Metamucil
• Sangobion
• Sean Seas
• New Chapter
• Align
• Neurobion
• Femibion

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Unilever:

• OLLY
• ONNIT
• Smarty Pants

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by New Mountain Capital:

• Jarrow Formulas
• Natrol

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Alticor:

• Nutrilite (all amway brand)
• Metagenics

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by WM Partners LP:

• Great Lakes Gelatin
• Vega
• Ultima Health

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Schwabe:

• Sanat
• Enzymatic Therapy
• Nature’s Way
• Integrative Therapeutics

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals:

• Uqora
• Nature Made
• MegaFood
• Equelle
• Innate

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Johnson & Johnson:

• Zarbees Naturals

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Bansk Group:

• Naturelo

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Butterfly Equity:

• Orgain

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Pfizer:

• Multi- tabs
• Caltrate
• Centrum
• Bifiform
• Emergen-C

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Swander Pace Capital:

• Swanson Health

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Apollo Global Management:

• Sprouts Farmers Market (this includes not only their whole store, but their personal supplements brand as well)

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Bridges Consumer Healthcare:

• Florajen

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Harbin Pharmaceutical Group:

• GNC (this includes not only their whole store, but their personal supplements brand as well)

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Amazon:

• 365 by Whole Foods (this includes not only their whole store, but their personal supplements brand as well)

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Kraft Heinz:

• Primal Blueprint

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Probi:

• Nutraceutix
• Vital Nutrients

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Kikkoman:

• Country Life Supplements

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by TSG Consumer Partners:

• Nuun

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Medly Pharmacy:

• Pharmaca

Vitamin/ Nutrition/ Supplement Brands Bought Out by Church & Dwight Co. Inc:

• Lil Critters
• PB8
• Vitafusion

Well, that was disappointing and crazy right? Keep in mind this doesn’t include any of the OTC drug brands like Motrin etc.

Comment on this post with what most surprised you and your thoughts!!

Share with a friend!!

References/Sources

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/difference-between-publicly-and-privately-held-companies/

https://www.wallstreetmojo.com/public-company-vs-private-company/

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/acquisition.asp#:~:text=An%20acquisition%20is%20when%20one,of%20the%20company’s%20other%20shareholders.

Seek Truth & Live Free