Swanson Health Products

Swanson Health Products (SHP) is a natural health catalog and Internet marketing company headquartered in Fargo, North Dakota.

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, Irwin Stone, Roger J. Williams, Paul Bragg, and Adelle Davis.

Swanson's personal regimen began with vitamin E, 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 15000 sqft facility. In the 1990s, the company added a website, swansonvitamins.com. SHP moved into a 120000 sqft 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 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, 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 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.”