Supplemental insurance: National Vitamin Co. sets up shop in Las Vegas

Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2001 | 8:24 a.m.

Those aren't liqueur-filled candies that folks looking through a large glass window are watching come off an assembly line.

They're vitamins.

But what was good enough for Ethel M Chocolates was good enough for Earl Courtney Jr.

Courtney, founder of National Vitamin Co. in Porterville, Calif., visited the Ethel M manufacturing plant in Henderson while on vacation in 1991. He went on the self-guided tour through the candy-making facility, where people walked by a series of windows and watched each step of the manufacturing process. At the end of the tour visitors ended up in a retail store, where they were given free samples of candy and could purchase sweets manufactured at the site.

Earl Courtney III, son of the vitamin company founder, said his father was intrigued by the concept created by the late Forrest Mars Sr., who founded Ethel M (named for his mother) in 1980.

"Dad liked it," Courtney said. "He knew a lot of people were curious about how things are made, and he knew that the population was becoming more health conscious. So after seeing the Ethel M plant he decided to build a plant to showcase how vitamins are made."

It took seven years, but the $10 million, 80,000-square-foot facility in Las Vegas finally opened at 7440 S. Industrial Road in September 1998. It employs 85 people.

Following Ethel M's marketing technique, tourists are given free samples of some of the items produced by National Vitamin. And just as at Ethel M, there is a retail shop at the end of the tour.

The retail outlet sells more than 500 different vitamins, minerals and other health-related products, many of them produced on-site. And there is a health bar, where people can buy vitamin-laced Smoothies.

Before reaching the retail store, guests can watch state-of-the-art stainless-steel machines turn out capsules, tablets and soft-gel capsules, not only for the company's own line of products (such as Nature's Blend and Life-Line ) but also for other companies (such as Sav-On).

National Vitamin products are found in 10,000 retail stores around the country and all military commissaries on the West Coast.

Courtney and his sister, Chantal Garcia, are co-managers of the Las Vegas plant, which also produces a line of cosmetics (Chantal). Their father oversees the California operation, which is almost twice as large and does not offer tours.

"This is a custom-designed building," Courtney said. "Normally, the facility would be a lot more condensed, but to (showcase the manufacturing) we stretched it out."

Vitamins are a $10-billion business in the United States. Courtney said four or five of the largest manufacturers rake in about $4 billion annually.

National Vitamin, among the top 50 vitamin manufacturers in the country, started in a garage in San Jose, Calif.

The 37-year-old Courtney has worked for his father's company for 27 years.

"When I was 10 years old, I started sweeping up pills dropped on the floor," he said. "I worked my way up to packaging."

Courtney's father was a pharmaceutical salesman in California when he saw the growing trend in vitamin use and started his own company. Initially he bought his products from a wholesale manufacturing company and put his own label on the bottles, and now he does that for other companies.

"One reason we built a plant in Las Vegas is that Dad felt we could reach a more international customer base," Courtney said. "There is a lot of excitement in Las Vegas. It's a growing town and there is a lot of diversity. It's a seniors-oriented town, and seniors and vitamins go hand-in-hand."

Between 600 and 700 people a day tour the plant, which operates around the clock but is only open to the public from 6 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Saturday, and 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays.

Most of the visitors are tourists who signed up with Guaranteed Tours, which offers a variety of packages that include stops at several points of interest in and around Las Vegas .

The self-guided tour of the vitamin plant is free for anyone who drops by. However, Guaranteed Tours charges for its various packaged excursions, some of which include a stop at the vitamin plant.

Ruth Michael of Indianapolis was on a recent tour. She said she didn't specifically request to see vitamins being made, but it was included in the package.

"There are a lot of vitamins here," Michael said as she looked around the retail store. "The industry, on the whole, is making stuff for everything and it's making people paranoid. You could be taking vitamins all day. I take One-A-Day, and that's it."

The tour

Millions of vitamins are turned out each day at the plant.

The process begins with the arrival of raw materials that will go into the vitamins. The materials are placed in quarantine and analyzed by chemists for quality.

Once the raw material is released by the chemists it goes to a room where it is weighed, then to another room where it is blended with other ingredients.

After the powdered vitamin is blended it goes to an encapsulating room, where the powder is inserted into hard-shell capsules (which also are made on the premises).

Or, if the vitamin is to be made into a pill the raw powder is sent to a tablet press where it is compacted into a tablet. The press can turn out 100,000 tablets an hour. Tablets are sent to a coating room, where they are sprayed with a thin coating that allows the pill to be easily swallowed.

Soft gelatin capsules, which contain liquid, are closely inspected to make sure there are no leaks. Inspectors check about a million of the gelatin capsules each day.

After the pills, capsules and gelatin capsules are made, they are packaged, labeled and shipped.

"Our quality control staff will test each batch of finished product and once they give it the green light then we transfer the product to packaging," Courtney said.

The answer man

Dennis Okwuadigbo is the scientist in charge of quality control. He also gives lectures, mingles with tourists and answers questions they may have about vitamins and alternative medicine.

Okwuadigbo was a mechanical engineer in his native Nigeria, but when he came to the United States 15 years ago he decided to become a pharmacist. After getting a degree in pharmacy he continued his studies and received a doctorate in pharmacology.

"Because of my background from childhood in Nigeria, I know there are certain herbs that can give you health," he said.

Okwuadigbo's father was a government official, but he knew a little about herbal medicine.

"My dad used to take leaves from some tree and boil them and when you drink it it relieves fever and stomach problems," Okwuadigbo said. "That was one of the things that gave me the curiosity to go to pharmacy school."

Okwuadigbo says he doesn't mind being scrutinized by tourists through a window while he and his lab assistances are conducting tests.

"After a week or two, you don't notice them anymore," he said.

He said one of the best parts of his job is talking to the tourists.

"I talk to a lot of people here," Okwuadigbo said. "My area of expertise is a good knowledge of pharmacology and a good knowledge of nutritional supplements and alternative medicines.

"I can zero in on your prescription, ask you what you are taking and how much and we go into your medical conditions, your lifestyle, your age and we can tailor products to your individual needs."

Okwuadigbo said vitamins are important, even for those who eat balanced meals.

"Foods are supposed to give you all of your vitamins and minerals," he said, "but today there are a lot of issues about food, about the ingredients in food."

"If you know anything about farming," Okwuadigbo said, "you know that land should be left fallow (for a time) to allow it to replenish itself (with vitamins and minerals). That doesn't happen today. An apple may smell and taste like an apple, but does it have all the nutrients?"

Preservatives may destroy some of the nutrients in food. Cooking also affects the amount of vitamins and minerals in the food.

"So, instead of getting 100 percent of what you need, you maybe get 50 percent," Okwuadigbo said.

Okwuadigbo said some doctors discourage patients from seeking alternative medicines.

"For example, St. John's Wort is very good for depression, but many doctors won't recommend (the over-the-counter drug)," he said.

Vitamins and minerals should not be taken haphazardly, however. Okwuadigbo said people should be aware of all possible side effects, as well as how they may interact with prescription medicines.

"Food in this country generally has less magnesium than is essential for all the calcium we need in our diet," Okwuadigbo said. "Individuals who take calcium alone, without magnesium, can run into a problem with kidney stones."

He said people with medical conditions should be treated by a doctor, but also might consider alternative treatments.

"What we do here is prevention of disease and maintenance of good health," Okwuadigbo said.

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