Nutrilite : Best of Nature, Best of Science
Nutrilite is a brand of mineral, vitamin, and dietary supplements created in 1934 by Dr. Carl F. Rehnborg. Nutrilite products are currently manufactured by Access Business Group, a subsidiary of Alticor whose products are sold via the Amway and Amway Global Corporations worldwide. The Nutrilite brand is known as Nutriway in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand.
History
Dr. Carl Rehnborg created the first multi-vitamin in the 1930's. His time in China between 1917 and 1927 or so exposed him to experiences in which he realized the role vitamins and nutrients impacted general health. He began selling his vitamins as the California Vitamin company and renamed it in 1939 to Nutrilite. In 1945, he invented the multi-level marketing, door-to-door, selling system to distribute his vitamins. Two men, Lee S. Mytinger and William S. Casselberry became exclusive national distributor in 1945 and operated a company to distribute the vitamins.
The founders of Amway, billionaires Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos, began as independent distributors selling Nutrilite products in 1949, at a time when the product's previous distributors (Mytinger and Casselberry, Inc.) were involved in a dispute with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which accused them of false advertising. They rose rapidly to being top-selling distributers. Concerned about the FDA dispute, Van Andel and DeVos launched a new company, the American Way, (later known as Amway), to use the MLM system for other household products. The FDA/Mytinger-Cassleberry dispute, which was went to the United States Supreme Court, was resolved in favor of the FDA in the 1960's.
Amway bought a controlling interest in the company in 1972, and took over complete ownership in 1994.
In 2001, five Nutrilite products were the first dietary supplements to be certified by NSF International.
In 2007, the Simply Nutrilite (later renamed Nutrilite Trim Advantage Body System) line was introduced. The line includes health bars, anti-oxidant, and vitamin supplements.
