 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Health products |
| Founded | 1968 |
| Headquarters | Boca Raton, Florida |
| Website | www.twinlab.com |
Twinlab Consolidated Corporation is an American company which manufactures and markets vitamins, minerals, and bodybuilding supplements. Twinlab is based in Boca Raton, Florida.
Twinlab currently produces more than 500 different products. [1]
Twinlab was founded by David and Jean Blechman in 1968 and run by them and their sons – Neil, Brian, Ross, Steve and Dean. Using experience gained from over 20 years as a pharmaceutical salesman, David Blechman named the company for his two sets of twins and started marketing a liquid protein supplement from their family garage. Sales of Twinlab's only product skyrocketed in the 1970s, in part from the success of a 1976 book entitled The Last Chance Diet — When Everything Else Has Failed: Dr. Linn's Protein-Sparing Fast Program . Dr. Robert Linn was a Pennsylvania osteopath, who had begun prescribing for his overweight patients a program of fasting and four- to six-ounce daily doses of liquid protein. His book sold extremely well, and Dr. Linn's diet became the latest weight-loss fad diet. This led to increased sales for Twinlab's liquid protein. As with many fad diets, the fasting/liquid protein craze came to a halt when in late 1976 and early 1977 there were reports of the deaths of 58 people who had followed Linn's diet.
Following a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation the associated coverage of the popular diet and its potential side effects by Newsweek, Parents' Magazine, and Science Digest, the liquid protein market bottomed out, and Twinlab's revenues declined sharply forcing the company to cut nearly all of its 150-person workforce.
In the 1980s Twinlab branched out formulating new vitamin and nutritional supplements and purchased a publishing company called Advanced Research Press, Inc. (ARP) publishers of the bodybuilding magazine Muscular Development and several other magazines.
David Blechman retired in 1996, and passed the title of CEO to his son Ross, while the other sons were installed as corporate officers. He died on July 7, 2000. In 2001 Twinlab sold ARP to Steve Blechman who then resigned from Twinlab.
After slumping sales in 2002, [2] [3] the company filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 reorganization with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in September 2003. In 2004, Twinlab Corp., Twin Laboratories Inc. and Twin Laboratories (UK) Ltd. were purchased for $65 million by IdeaSphere Inc. [4]
Ideasphere also known as ISI brands, and which also operated as Twinlab, went on to acquire other dietary supplement brands such as Metabolife, Nature's Herbs, Alvita Teas, and a publisher, Rebus LLC. [5]
In January 2014 Twinlab's CEO Tom Tolworthy announced that he would partner with Capstone Financial Group to raise $130M to conduct a management buyout of Twinlab and make other acquisitions, via an entity called Twinlab Consolidation Corporation. [6] [7] The transaction was completed in August 2014. [8]
In July 2018, Anthony Zolezzi, founder of Bubba Gump Shrimp Company [9] [10] and Pet Promise Natural Dog Food [11] was named CEO of Twinlab, after being appointed to the Board of Directors the previous May. [12]
Vitamin variations are as follows; [13]
Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2, is a vitamin found in food and sold as a dietary supplement. It is essential to the formation of two major coenzymes, flavin mononucleotide and flavin adenine dinucleotide. These coenzymes are involved in energy metabolism, cellular respiration, and antibody production, as well as normal growth and development. The coenzymes are also required for the metabolism of niacin, vitamin B6, and folate. Riboflavin is prescribed to treat corneal thinning, and taken orally, may reduce the incidence of migraine headaches in adults.
A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement a person's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources, or that are synthetic. The classes of nutrient compounds in supplements include vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids, and amino acids. Dietary supplements can also contain substances that have not been confirmed as being essential to life, and so are not nutrients per se, but are marketed as having a beneficial biological effect, such as plant pigments or polyphenols. Animals can also be a source of supplement ingredients, such as collagen from chickens or fish for example. These are also sold individually and in combination, and may be combined with nutrient ingredients. The European Commission has also established harmonized rules to help insure that food supplements are safe and appropriately labeled.
The Scarsdale diet, a high-protein low-carbohydrate fad diet designed for weight loss, created in the 1970s by Herman Tarnower and named for the town in New York where he practiced cardiology, is described in the book The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet Plus Dr. Tarnower's Lifetime Keep-Slim Program. Tarnower wrote the book together with self-help author Samm Sinclair Baker.
A high-protein diet is a diet in which 20% or more of the total daily calories come from protein. Many high protein diets are high in saturated fat and restrict intake of carbohydrates.
The Cambridge Diet was a very-low-calorie meal replacement fad diet developed in the 1960s. The diet launched with different versions in the US and the UK. The US version filed for bankruptcy and shut down shortly after the deaths of several dieters. The UK diet has also been known as the Cambridge Weight Plan, but is now known as The 1:1 Diet.
MET-Rx is an American brand of nutritional supplements originally produced by Met-Rx, Inc., a California company started by Scott Connelly, and sold several times since.
Juice fasting, also known as juice cleansing, is a fad diet in which a person consumes only fruit and vegetable juices while abstaining from solid food consumption. It is used for detoxification, an alternative medicine treatment, and is often part of detox diets. The diet can typically last from one to seven days and involve a number of fruits and vegetables and even spices that are not among the juices typically sold or consumed in the average Western diet. The diet is sometimes promoted with implausible and unsubstantiated claims about its health benefits.
Sports nutrition is the study and practice of nutrition and diet with regards to improving anyone's athletic performance. Nutrition is an important part of many sports training regimens, being popular in strength sports and endurance sports. Sports nutrition focuses its studies on the type, as well as the quantity of fluids and food taken by an athlete. In addition, it deals with the consumption of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, supplements and organic substances that include carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
A protein-sparing modified fast or PSMF diet is a type of a very-low-calorie diet with a high proportion of protein calories and simultaneous restriction of carbohydrate and fat. It includes a protein component, fluids, and vitamin and mineral supplementation.
The Vitamin Shoppe is an American, New Jersey-based retailer of nutritional supplements. It also operated three stores in Canada under the name VitaPath from January 2013 until March 2016. The company provides approximately 7,000 different SKUs of supplements through its retail stores and over 17,000 different SKUs of supplements through its retail websites.
A meal replacement is a drink, bar, soup, etc. intended as a substitute for a solid food, usually with controlled quantities of calories and nutrients. Some drinks come in powdered form or pre-mixed health shakes that can be cheaper than solid foods with identical health qualities. Medically prescribed meal replacement drinks include the body's necessary vitamins and minerals. Bodybuilders sometimes use meal replacements, not formulated for weight loss, to save food preparation time when eating 5-6 meals a day.
Metrecal was a brand of low-calorie, powdered diet foods "containing the essential nutrients of protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals" introduced in the early 1960s by the Mead Johnson company, with the first variety going on the market on October 6, 1959, the same day as another Mead Johnson product, Enfamil. Though the initial Metrecal products were criticized for their taste, which newer varieties of flavor tried to improve upon, it attained a niche in the popular culture of the time. Created and marketed initially by C. Joseph Genster of Mead Johnson & Company, it was eventually replaced in the market by competitors such as SlimFast and lost popularity.
The Dukan Diet is a high-protein low-carbohydrate fad diet devised by Pierre Dukan.
The Chemins Company is a dietary supplement manufacturer based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The company, founded in 1974 by James Cameron, became embroiled in a series of criminal investigations in 1994 after a woman died and more than 100 other people became ill after taking one of the company's products marketed under the brand name Nature's Nutrition Formula One. The adverse events were later linked to the product having been tainted with ephedrine. A three-year federal investigation, which revealed that the company had doctored records, misled FDA investigators, and purposely hindered inspections, led to Cameron being sentenced to 21 months in prison and him and the company being fined $4.7 million. The company also paid out $750,000 to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the company's protein powder supplements contained approximately half the protein content and twice the carbohydrate content listed on the label.
Robert Collins Hoffman was an American entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the owner of York Barbell. He founded magazines such as Muscular Development and Strength & Health, and was the manufacturer of a line of bodybuilding supplements. Hoffman promoted bodybuilders like John Grimek and Sigmund Klein, coached the American Olympic Weightlifting Team between 1936 and 1968, and was a founding member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
Healthspan is a UK's largest mail-order supplier of vitamins, minerals and health supplements. Established by Derek Coates in 1996, the company is based at the Healthspan House on the Channel Island of Guernsey.
Dave Asprey is an American entrepreneur, author and advocate of a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet known as the Bulletproof diet, about which he has made claims criticized by dietitians as pseudoscientific. He founded Bulletproof 360, Inc. in 2013, and in 2017, founded Bulletproof Nutrition Inc. Men's Health described Asprey as a "lifestyle guru".
The a2 Milk Company Limited is a dual listed NZX and ASX 50 public listed company that commercialises intellectual property relating to A1 protein-free milk that is sold under the a2 and a2 Milk brands, as well as the milk and related products such as infant formula.
Huel Ltd. is a company that makes plant-based meals, snacks, drinks, and food supplements. Its products are made from oats, rice protein, pea protein, sunflower, flaxseed, coconut oil MCTs, and several dietary supplements. Most products are sweetened with sucralose or stevia. The product's name is a portmanteau of human fuel.
New Chapter, Inc. is the American manufacturer of the New Chapter brand of vitamins and other organic dietary supplements. Based in Brattleboro, Vermont, the company is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) subsidiary of Procter & Gamble. The company's products include herbal supplements, probiotics, superfood greens and mushrooms.