Recently Ryan Drexler, Executive Chairman of MusclePharm, a public supplement company selling sports nutrition products released a letter to shareholders about the “state” of MusclePharm. Here’s the letter. In that letter, I am guessing that he is trying to bolster investor confidence in his company that is seeing its stock plummet.
It’s worth a measly $2 something a share right now, pretty sad.
I’ve been in the supplement business for almost 20 years, and I know a lot about supplements. I wanted to respond to his letter because I can see nothing positive about his letter and nothing that would boost investor or shareholder confidence in MusclePharm.
First of all, I’m glad to see that you put your balls on the line by loaning the company 6 million bucks. However, this does not make we want to buy shares in $MSLP.
Second, I’d like to comment on your “innovative products” part in your letter. This is what I am not so confident with, your products. You see that is what makes a company great or not. It’s their products. [clickToTweet tweet=”If you have a great product, it will sell. ” quote=”If you have a great product, it will sell. “] It is as simple as that. The problem with the sports nutrition industry is that there are no great products. A great product would be one that would build muscle right? I mean this is the sports nutrition business and customers are buying the products in hopes that it will build muscle and improve recovery time, right? The only product actually proven to build muscle is creatine. And creatine is creatine (even though it has been tried about a thousand times by supplement companies to make new and improved versions, none of them worked). Your products are not innovative nor are they outstanding, and they are average to below average in my opinion.
A) First, you mention your new protein bar line called, Combat Crunch.
I went ahead a looked at the nutrition facts even though you have them labeled as supplement facts on your website. (quite amateur)
This protein bar, in my opinion, is below average quality and innovation as far as protein bars goes. Why? #1 it has soy. Everyone who has somewhat of a clue about nutrition knows to avoid soy. #2 glycerin. A cheap sugar alcohol that makes the bar soft. #3 sugar and sucralose, two garbage ingredients.
You can easily find better protein bars (taste better, just as good, and definitely with better ingredients) on the market than Combat Crunch. I see ZERO innovation in this bar. Here’s one I found from a small manufacturer out in California.
[easyazon_image align=”none” height=”498″ identifier=”B00M54J4AG” locale=”US” src=”https://proteinfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/61HUKwmpCoL.jpg” tag=”bp025-20″ width=”500″]
Papa Steve’s bar has no soy, no sugar alcohol, no sucralose, and no added sugar.
If Mr. Drexler can tell me the innovation in this Combat Crunch bar, I’d love to hear it. Because to me, this looks like a bar that would of come out about 10 or 15 years ago with ingredients that nobody wants to be consuming anymore unless this was 1992.
The next product I’d like you to respond to is this product.
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Again I’m a supplement expert, and I’d like to point out that this product is misbranded. ZERO’s according to the Code of Federal Regulations 111’s for Dietary Supplements are not permitted in the supplement facts panel. Your whey isolate product clearly shows numerous zero’s. If the FDA would come to inspect your company you could be subjected to a recall if the FDA told you so. A recall of product surely would NOT look good for possible investors and/or current shareholders. Who the hell is doing your quality control and FDA compliance, Mo, Larry, & Curly?
The next product I’d like to comment on is this product. Combat powder black weight gainer
[easyazon_link identifier=”B00WOZUB5I” locale=”US” tag=”bp025-20″]Muscle Pharm Black Label Combat Gainer Supplement, Chocolate, 5 Pound[/easyazon_link]
Looking at the “SUPER” ingredients in this product I find it nothing more than below average at best. It reminds me of a product from the early 1990’s, which typically consisted of maltodextrin and whey protein.
Here’s is the Combat Black Gainer from GNC’s website.
Nothing innovative here. Maltodextrin is one of the oldest, cheapest, and worse products you can use for gaining weight in my opinion. It spikes one’s insulin levels causing fat gains, more fat to be stored as fat and prevents fat stores from being burned up. If your company were truly innovative, it would have used a carb that actually was a lot more beneficial to a person’s health and overall appearance. Like this carb,
[easyazon_image align=”none” height=”500″ identifier=”B00DP5R546″ locale=”US” src=”https://proteinfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/512BO0lPH3mL.jpg” tag=”bp025-20″ width=”500″]
Anyone with some decent knowledge about nutrition can easily tell the difference between cheap maltodextrin and the ingredients in the above product.
I can spend all day long commenting on your below average, non-innovative supplements that you have created for your company. I do not see one innovative product. What I find truly laughable is your ZMA product. ZMA was created back in the 90’s by Victor Conte. I feel it is a complete scam, and so does the author of this book.
Mr. Drexler, your company, sells sports nutrition products. That is how it makes its money. In my opinion, your whole line quite frankly stinks. Using Arnold other celebrities to sell your products is nothing more than cleaning up that piece of shit car in the used car lot. It may look good on the outside with shiny new wheels and freshly waxed, but the engine is nothing but trash. If you want Musclepharm to succeed you should completely revamp all of your products, quit relying on marketing hype and fancy labels to sell your products, and hire some people who can actually create innovative products. If you don’t then MusclePharm is no different than 95% of the supplement companies out there that sell all the same products but just package it differently to make it seem like they have something special, when in reality everyone is selling the same thing.
Alex Rogers is a supplement manufacturing expert. He has been formulating, consulting, & manufacturing dietary supplements since 1998. Alex invented protein customization in 1998 & was the first company to allow consumers to create their own protein blends. He helped create the first supplement to contain natural follistatin, invented whey protein with egg lecithin, & recently imported the world’s first 100% hydrolyzed whey.
