Swanson Health Products (SHP) is a

natural health Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are k ...

catalog and Internet marketing company headquartered in

Fargo, North Dakota Fargo ( /ˈfɑɹɡoʊ/) is a city in and the county seat of Cass County, North Dakota, United States. According to the 2020 census, its population was 125,990, making it the most populous city in the state and the 219th-most populous city in ...

History

Swanson Health Products launched in 1969 in Fargo by Leland Swanson Sr. A self-taught natural health enthusiast, Swanson cites the influence of

Linus Pauling Linus Carl Pauling (; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific top ...

, Irwin Stone, Roger J. Williams,

Paul Bragg Paul Chappuis Bragg (February 6, 1895 – December 7, 1976) was an American alternative health food advocate and fitness enthusiast. Bragg's mentor was Bernarr Macfadden. He wrote on subjects such as Detoxification (alternative medicine), dietin ...

, and

Adelle Davis Adelle Davis (25 February 1904 – 31 May 1974) was an American writer and nutritionist, considered "the most famous nutritionist in the early to mid-20th century." She was an advocate for improved health through better nutrition. She wrote an e ...

. Swanson's personal regimen began with

vitamin E Vitamin E is a group of eight fat soluble compounds that include four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. Vitamin E deficiency, which is rare and usually due to an underlying problem with digesting dietary fat rather than from a diet low in vitami ...

, and by 1968, he was a regular user of several vitamins and supplements and began ordering in bulk to maintain his personal supply. Not long after he ordered 5,000 vitamin E capsules and began selling supplements through the mail. Shortly thereafter, he began publishing small catalogs of his own. By 1980, SHP was operating with about 10 employees from a storefront in downtown Fargo. In 1982 the company moved its mail order manufacturing and shipping operations to a facility. In the 1990s, the company added a website, swansonvitamins.com. SHP moved into a facility in 2001, housing its call center, customer care center, marketing, manufacturing, storage, and shipping operations all under one roof, while maintaining the original storefront. In January 2016, Leland Swanson, Jr. retired and SHP was acquired by Swander Pace Capital, a

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...

firm specializing in investments in growth-oriented, middle-market consumer-products companies. In January 2019, the company started selling products containing cannabidiol from industrial

hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants o ...

, which was federally legalized in the 2018 Farm Bill.

Products and quality control

Swanson Health Products carries more than 26,000 products, ranging from vitamins and supplements to "eco-friendly" home cleaning products. The company has more than 20 Swanson-branded lines that cover natural health products as well as some over-the-counter drugs and organic foods. Since 2001, SHP has participated in independent third-party Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) audits to maintain high-quality finished products. SHP submits its dietary supplements to

ConsumerLab.com ConsumerLab.com, LLC. is a privately held American company registered in White Plains, NY. It is a publisher of test results on health, wellness, and nutrition products. Consumer Labs is not a laboratory, but contracts studies to outside laborator ...

testing for third-party reviews of safety and efficacy. ConsumerLab.com tested only 25 of Swanson's 26,000+ supplements as of 9/8/2016.

FDA actions

Swanson Health Products has had a few encounters with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees the marketing and labeling of dietary supplements to ensure they are not labeled as unapproved drugs. In 2007, SHP received a warning letter from the FDA stating that the company was selling an unapproved version of the prescription cholesterol drug called Mevacor. FDA laboratory analysis determined that two of SHP's red yeast rice supplements contained significant amounts of lovastatin, the active ingredient in Mevacor and its generic counterparts. The FDA letter stated, “Because Red Yeast Rice and Red Yeast Rice/Policosanol Complex contain red yeast rice with enhanced or added lovastatin and bear claims about lipid control and other cardiovascular benefits supplied by this ingredient, they cannot be marketed as dietary supplements.”

References

External links

* {{Official website Naturopathy Retail companies of the United States Companies based in Fargo–Moorhead Health food stores Retail companies established in 1969