Mannatech, Inc

History of Mannatech Inc.

Mannatech was founded by in 1994 to sell nutritional supplements which include; capsules, drink powder, bars and chewable products. Their flag-ship ingredient, Ambrotose complex, which is made with Aloe Vera juice, is found in almost all their products.

The leaders of Mannatech have said that they joined the supplement industry because of the U.S. Congress passing a 1994 law that prevented overregulation by the FDA. A reason for the growing success of Mannatech is that the demand for natural health products by consumers kept increasing. The acceptance by health care professionals, who not too long ago thought of this method as crazy, is also a factor in the evolution of natural health.

Getting Started

Before the company became known by the name Mannatech, it began with the name Emprise International Inc. William C. Fioretti was the first president and his cousin, Sam Caster was vice-president. Caster and Fioretti's vision for the company began in the pharmaceutical business. They focused on developing and marketing biotech products for the agriculture industry.

Then a new federal law changed everything. As a result of Congress passing the law limiting the regulation of the supplement industry, Mannatech was born. The law prevented the FDA from closely regulating vitamins and nutritional supplements like it regulated drugs. Caster and Fioretti then hired three pharmaceutical firms. Emprise began selling products made with Manapol, a stabilized form of Aloe Vera.

In 1994, Emprise introduced 7 products: ManAloe, Plus caplets, MVP, Sport capsules, PhytAloe and Naturalizer, later renamed Ambroderm. In their first full year of business their net sales were of $8.4 million but a net loss of $342,000.

Ambrotose

One year later, the company introduced three new products: Emprizone, EmPact sports drink and chewable PhytoBears, a healthy Gummi Bear candy. The following year they introduced what would become their flagship product; Ambrotose. They marketed it as a, 'naturally occurring plant that includes freeze-dried Aloe Vera Gel extract-Manapol powder.' From that point on, almost all their products they sold had some Ambrotose in them.

Since then, Mannatech has continued to develop new products. With their array of products and vast array of network marketing distributors, the company now boasts annual net sales of $32.1. In addition, Mannatech was honored with the Biochemistry Discovery of the Year Award and NBC's Today Show highlighted the PhytoBears as one of the top products of 1996. USA Track & Field chose them to supply supplements to the American athletes participating in the 2000 Olympics. Mannatech continues to develop and produce new glycontrutrients products almost every year since 1995 while continuing to focus on the core Ambrotose flagship product.