When hope seemed lost, the right person helped reinvent this vitamin company into a top brand.
By Katie Gray
Garden of Life helps people achieve healthier lives with a focus on sourcing clean ingredients.
The vitamin and supplement company and Real Leaders Top Impact Company offers a variety of products such as probiotics that supply the gut and microbiome with healthy bacteria. Its plant- and dairy-based protein powders cater to special diets. Vitamins and minerals are offered for not just adults but children and babies as well.
Natural health expert Jordan Rubin’s personal journey with nutrition led him to found Garden of Life in 2000 in West Palm Beach, Florida. However, the business got into hot water with regulators for making unsubstantiated claims. Enter Jeff Brams in 2007.
“When I came, the goal was either turn it around or sell it for parts, so we obviously did a turnaround, and we became a very successful business,” says Brams, head of research and development at Garden of Life.
Brams applied his experiences from law school, the mission field, and the food industry to help Garden of Life rise to a top brand now carried in major health food and specialty stores, as well as Whole Foods, Walmart, and Target.
“I had a vision for organic, non-GMO nutrition,” he says. “That vision wasn’t really existing in the marketplace at the time, and that was the reinvention point. I created raw materials supply chains and built new products.”
The company sold in 2009 to a group owned by a pension fund, then to a private equity, and in 2017 to Nestlé Health Science. “At every step along the way, everyone bought into the vision,” Brams says. “We can have more power than we recognize if we stay dogmatically, passionately committed to our message.”
Garden of Life’s mission revolves around traceability. It is transparent about where its ingredients come from and prides itself on being connected at the source, ensuring the food being grown is free of harsh chemicals. Products have no artificial colorings, dyes, synthetic ingredients, or fillers. Its mykind Organics line’s products are certified by the USDA Organic standards and are non-GMO verified, among additional certifications.
At one point Brams identified the need for cleaner turmeric, a spice grown primarily in India that has been shown to help with joint health. He discovered that it was being sprayed with harsh chemicals and extracted with ethanol or other petroleum byproducts.
“You’re creating a product that’s meant for good, but you’re doing no good in the creation process,” Brams notes. “The first mission was to work with partners who knew organic farming in India.” Brams spent much of the last two decades forging relationships to help local farmers, suppliers, and Garden of Life profit.
He has had his share of product failures — e.g., butter powder, and chocolate and vanilla salmon protein — but he believes in failing forward and says each failure taught him lessons that helped him achieve his next success.
Brams also finds opportunities to humanize the company image to connect to customers. “Garden of Life is a friend that you want to be like,” he says. “It’s not preachy. It’s slightly aspirational.”
