How is Shaklee Different?

It’s always easiest to understand an abstract concept by looking at a few concrete examples. Let’s review the rigorous process that the Vitalizer System(#20246 for men, #20247 for women, and #20248 for everyone over 50) goes through before it arrives at your door. This review is required reading for the course titled “Shaklee101.”

The Anatomy of A Product

Vitalizer is created from 69 different raw materials – delivering the perfect balance of 80 different nutrients – each with their own detailed specifications, and involved processes that address their purity and potency all along the way.To ensure that Vitalizer meets Shaklee quality standards, a production manual, with over 550 pages of specifications is used to provide detailed instructions on how to make and test the product.

Raw Material Vendors

Extensive quality checks are done prior to accepting a vendor as “Shaklee-approved” – with over 60 different Quality Checkpoints required for each and every raw material. Extensive testing is performed on multiple lots of a new ingredient before we approve the vendor.

Quality Inspection

During the qualification period, over 640 tests are performed on all 69 raw materials, to ensure that they meet exacting standards.

Exceeding GMP Standards

When considering a potential facility over 40 hours are devoted to the auditing process, to ensure the highest quality of manufacturing and process controls. Over 200 validation tests are performed on vitamins and minerals to ensure a consistent, high-quality production process. On-site inspections take place every six months.

Rigorous Manufacturing Process

Over 1,000 Quality Inspections are made every time Vitalizer is produced. Over 100 visual inspections review appearance. Another 110 tests are conducted on each batch, to ensure that every ingredient on the label is present in the right amount. Over 500 physical tests are run regularly, to make sure the product is being manufactured consistently. Over 330 raw material tests are done on every single batch – with an additional 253 annual audit checks.

Post-production Testing

Even after Vitalizer is shipped to the distribution centers, ongoing testing of stored products ensures that the nutrients maintain their potency and freshness. Above all, Shaklee is committed to quality. You see it in their 100% money-back guarantee, and in the 1,000 and one quality tests, and the innovative and patent-protected technologies that make Vitalizer the most advanced nutrient delivery system available.

The Profit Motive

Most Americans have become disillusioned with big Corporations since the 1980s. When business puts profits above ethics and quality, consumers invariably suffer. This is the next thing that sets Shaklee apart: Profits have always taken a backseat to quality. Here’s a perfect example:

Shaklee has a rigorous process for vetting their raw material suppliers. Shaklee standards are much higher than FDA-approved “good manufacturing” standards. Organic farmers must grow their produce following rigorous procedures, but they are not required to test their crop for contaminants, bacteria, pesticides, or heavy metals. Although they may do everything right while growing their produce, they do not have any control over the conditions fo the local water supply, the previous history of the soil they grow on, or air-borne pollutants that may affect their crops, from over-sprays from adjacent conventional farms.

In 1998, Shaklee’s #4 best selling product was Ginseng. During that year they received a shipment of ginseng roots from China, and during routine purity testing, they discovered that the roots were tainted with a toxic fungicide called quintazine. As it turned out, there has been severe flooding in China, and someone added this fungicide to the ginseng bulbs, to keep them from rotting during transit. This fungicide is carcinogenic, and is currently banned for use in the USA. Products containing it are also banned from import. But, who was watching the store? Banned or not, they made it all the way to Shaklee’s loading dock!

Because Shaklee regularly quarantines and tests all their raw materials, they immediately detected the presence of the quintazine, and they rejected that load. The next few batches they received also tested positive, evidently because the whole year’s crop had been affected by the flooding. For this reason Shaklee stopped all production of Ginseng for a year and a half, while they searched for another pure source of raw materials.

Meanwhile, Shaklee was the ONLY manufacturer that discontinued ginseng production during this period . . . everyone else sold product make from those same contaminated roots. Manufacturers take the supplier’s word for product purity, because they don’t have the infrastructure (technicians and their expensive lab equipment_ necessary to do raw material purity and potency testing. Shaklee sets the ;gold standard for the rest of the industry by testing, all the way from raw materials through the finished and packaged products.

In 1971 Shaklee invested over $60 million, building the cutting-edge Forest C. Shaklee Research Center in Hayward, California. To replace that building and high-tech testing equipment today would cost more than $200 million!

During this two-year period, Shaklee scientists developed and tested the amazing new CorEnergy product (#20632). This new product enhances ginseng’s energy-boosting properties by combining it with green tea polyphenols and cordyceps mushroom extract. Cordyceps enhances stamina, and recent research shows that it’s helpful for the treatment of asthma. It’s also used to protect kidney and liver function following organ transplants.

The Shaklee Difference has never been more profoundly expressed than with their soy protein products. Soy powder manufacturers use the alcohol extraction process, which unfortunately leaches out the two most important soy isoflavones (Genistein and Daidzein). It can also cause contamination from the other chemicals in the process. Shaklee uses a more costly and slower, water-wash method, because it retains the critical soy isoflavones most associated with it’s health benefits. Shaklee also recently introduced a genetic certification process called the Identity Preserved Program, to guarantee that the soybeans they use are not genetically modified.

When it comes to guaranteeing that their products provide high quality and complete nutrient availability, “Shaklee has your back!”