The Vitamin Shoppe

Vitamin Shoppe Industries Inc.
Public (60% privately owned)
Traded as NYSE: VSI
Industry Retail
Founded 1977
Headquarters North Bergen, New Jersey, United States[1]
Number of locations
 484 (December 2010)[2]
Key people

Colin Watts, CEO;

Brenda M. Galgano, Executive VP and CFO
Products Nutritional supplements
Website www.vitaminshoppe.com
Vitamin Shoppe store, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The Vitamin Shoppe (formally Vitamin Shoppe Industries, Inc.) is an American, New Jersey-based, retailer of nutritional supplements. They also operate stores in Canada under the name "VitaPath". The company provides approximately 8,000 different skus of supplements through its retail stores and over 20,000 different skus of supplements through its online retail websites.

In 2002, Vitamin Shoppe Industries was sold to an affiliate of Bear Stearns Merchant Banking, a private equity unit of Bear Stearns, for approximately $310 million.[3] The company made $751.5 million in net sales in Fiscal 2010 and has a market capitalization of over $1 billion.[4]

The Vitamin Shoppe held an initial public offering on October 26, 2009.[5]

History

Jeffrey Horowitz founded The Vitamin Shoppe in 1977.

Products

The Vitamin Shoppe Logo

The Vitamin Shoppe's retail stores and online sites carry a line of nutritional supplements[6] with supplementary lines, such as Vitamin Shoppe's M.D. Select (a line put together by Dr. Ronald Hoffman) and the Bodytech brand of sports supplements. In addition to their own brands, the company carries third-party lines, including professional and specialized lines.

A 2015 study, lead by Dr. Pieter A. Cohen of Harvard, found that three supplements — JetFuel Superburn, JetFuel T-300 and MX-LS7 — sold at Vitamin Shoppe, contained BMPEA. In response, Vitamin Shoppe removed these products from shelves because the safety of these supplements were in question and may not comply with F.D.A. regulations.[7]

Reception

On January 19, 2007, independent laboratory ConsumerLab.com found 32.8 micrograms of lead per daily serving in Vitamin Shoppe's "Especially for Women" multivitamin.[8] 15.3 micrograms is more than ten times the amount of lead permitted without a warning label in California, the only state to regulate lead in supplements. The amount of lead found was found to cause cancer and death to 29 people nationwide. In the wake of extensive adverse media coverage, Vitamin Shoppe withdrew the product, but in a statement made by CEO Tom Tolworthy, denied it had any proof the vitamins were contaminated, and asserted that, despite the high lead levels found in the Consumer Labs tests, its vitamins were manufactured in accordance with "good manufacturing practices."[9]

On June 15, 2011, Vitamin Shoppe's Ultimate Woman Gold multivitamin was tested by ConsumerLab.com in their Multivitamin and Multimineral Supplements Review of 38 of the leading multivitamin/multimineral products sold in the U.S. and Canada. This multivitamin passed ConsumerLab's test,[10] which included testing of selected index elements, their ability to disintegrate in solution per United States Pharmacopeia guidelines, lead contamination threshold set in California Proposition 65, and meeting U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeling requirements.[11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Garbarine, Rachele. "COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE: NEW JERSEY; After a False Start, a Big Building Awaits Its Tenant", The New York Times, May 29, 2002
  2. ↑ The Vitamin Shoppe 2010 Annual Report
  3. ↑ Sorkin, Andrew Ross. "Bear, Stearns Unit Is Said To Buy Vitamin Shoppe", The New York Times, December 2, 2002
  4. ↑ "The Vitamin Shoppe - Investor Relations - Investor Relations Home". Phx.corporate-ir.net. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  5. ↑ VITAMIN SHOPPE, INC.: VSI (NYSE)
  6. ↑ "Vitamin Shoppe Industries, Inc.: Introduction". eNotes. of citation = 28 October 2008 Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ↑ O'CONNOR, ANAHAD. "Study Warns of Diet Supplement Dangers Kept Quiet by F.D.A.". NY Times. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  8. ↑ A Vitamin A Day May Do More Harm Than Good. MSNBC.com, January 19, 2007
  9. ↑ Vitamin Shoppe Calls for Independent Testing Procedures nutraingredients-usa.com January 26, 2007
  10. ↑ "ConsumerLab Multivitamin and Multimineral Supplements Review - Main Review". 15 June 2011. Retrieved 18 August 2011.(subscription required)
  11. ↑ "ConsumerLab Multivitamin and Multimineral Supplements Review - Testing Method". 15 June 2011. Retrieved 18 August 2011.

Vitamin Shoppe donates a meal to hungry child in need for every Kudos Bar sold.

References

External links