NutraBio’s Secret Ingredient to Success

N-Acetyl-Cysteine, glutamine, ribose and magnesium glycinate – what do all of these things have in common? 

They’re all sitting in my supplement cupboard, and I spend a lot of money on them each month.

Now some people might say that’s a waste, but I truly believe that the right, trusted supplements have the ability to positively affect my physical wellbeing, from improving my performance in the gym to boosting my immune health. 

The key portion of that sentence above, though, is “right” and “trusted,” as not all supplements are created equal. 

Mark Glazier knows a little something about that. 

The Genesis of NutraBio 

Over 20 years ago, Glazier launched NutraBio, the now-legendary supplement company, with the intention of helping consumers improve their lives through nutrition.

“My whole life has been about fitness, about eating properly, about nutrition,” said Glazier, a master in both karate and tae-kwon-do.

“When I got old enough, I opened my first karate studio and it became not just about fighting, but about how can I help people? How can the discipline of martial arts give people confidence and get them to be a better person and get more out of their life?

“Nutrition eventually became part of that, and when I decided to go full time into nutrition, it was the same thing. It was ‘how do I work with people, and make their lives better?’ It was mental, physical, and now it was through proper nutrition.” 

And so, NutraBio was born. Only there was one problem. 

 “I was selling garbage,” Glazier said. “I was young, I didn’t know much, and the Internet wasn’t around back then.” 

Without the ability to research products and ingredients, Glazier was forced to rely on a contract manufacturer to develop NutraBio’s first dozen or so products. While the products quickly took off, Glazier soon realized that his formulations had a dark secret – they were proprietary blends. 

The Problem with Proprietary Blends 

A proprietary blend is a unique preparation of ingredients in a dietary supplement that is formulated for a specific purpose, according to the Council for Responsible Nutrition. The quantities and ratios of the exact ingredients are considered a trade secret, which makes it near impossible for brand owners like Glazier to know what they’re selling.  

“I had three manufacturers, and none of them would show me the actual formulations, so I really didn’t know what the actual ingredient dosages were,” Glazier said. 

Frustrated by the lack of transparency, Glazier hired an attorney and took the manufacturers to court, determined to find out what he had been distributing to his customers for the past two years. 

“There was nothing in my products – it was all shit,” he said. 

“I had my first protein, and the first ingredient was maltodextrin,” Glazier continued. “I realized there was a major problem here, and so I tested about 300 products throughout the industry in the next two years, and found it wasn’t just me.” 

Glazier soon realized that the use of proprietary blends was two-fold. “One, it was for manufacturers to try to get lower bids to brands,” he said. “They would be playing around with formulas, putting less and less of the ingredients in and building stuff up, and brands like me just didn’t know it. And sometimes brands themselves knew what was going on, but they were just trying to make their products cheaper and cheaper, and build margin.” 

Redefining the Supplement Industry 

This alarming discovery led Glazier to the conclusion that something had to change – and he was going to be the one to do it. 

“In 2001, I destroyed almost $300,000 worth of inventory – almost my entire warehouse – in one day. And I started all over again,” the NutraBio founder said, recalling the beginning of a new era for both the company and the supplement industry. 

“We opened the doors, and literally truck after truck came in, and we dumped everything in. We used spikes to break open the bottles and filled the dumpsters with water afterward so no one could take the products,” he continued. 

After that, Glazier made a decision that would change the supplement industry forever. 

“The first thing we did was said no proprietary blends, full label disclosure,” Glazier said. “We got rid of fillers, we got rid of excipients; we made the promise that if we’re going to put something in there, not only are we going to show the dose, but we’re going to make sure there’s therapeutic dosages in there.”

“If a customer thinks they’re getting a benefit from it, they’re going to get that benefit from it,” he continued. “Fitness has been my entire life. I can’t sell a product or recommend a product to a consumer unless it’s something I would take, or something I would give to my own son or my own family.”

Whether he realized it or not, Glazier’s commitment to quality and transparency in that moment not only set NutraBio apart from the competition, but also cemented Glazier as a legend in the industry, and forced a wave of change that can still be felt by manufacturers, brands and consumers today. 

“The industry is in a great place right now because of these last 20 or so years. Now you hear all of these companies saying ‘no proprietary blends.’ We actually coined that phrase; we all use that now,” he said, reflecting on how far things have come since that day in 2001. 

“There’s so many great products out there that are now doing this, and I think over the past 20 years or so, our small little company has made a decent impact on the industry,” Glazier said. 

While there will always be brands and products that make false promises, choosing the right supplements these days is a lot easier, thanks in large part to Glazier and NutraBio. 

Shop H/S-trusted products from NutraBio here. 

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