The maker of Solaray and VegLife supplements Nutraceutical International has been selected for the second consecutive year as one of Forbes Magazine's top 200 small companies for 2003.
The listing, featured in the October 27, 2003 issue, ranked Nutraceutical 114 down from 102 last year. Forbes screened more than 3,500 companies whose latest 12-month sales were in the range of $5 million to $600 million. Candidates were excluded if they had a net margin (excluding nonrecurring and extraordinary items) or five-year average return on equity below 5 per cent or had shares trading below $5 by the end of September.
Nutraceutical is one of the US' largest manufacturers and marketers of branded supplements and is continuing to grow. In June this year it bought the Nature's Life supplement brand from M.K. Health Food Distributors for approximately $10.8 million in cash.
This was followed by the purchase of the Arizona Health Foods chain (11 stores), through its subsidiary Fresh Vitamins for around $3.5 million, joining its other chains The Real Food Company and Thom's Natural Foods.
Net sales for the nine months ended June 30, 2003 have grown to $89.2 million compared to $81.6 million for the same period of fiscal 2002. Income before change in accounting principle was $9.3 million, compared to $9.5 million, during the same prior year period.
The company claims to distribute one of the broadest branded product lines in the industry with more than 3,000 SKUs, including 600 sold internationally.