Innovation Meets Efficacy in Nutritional Formulas with Joey Savage at Glaxon

Episode Overview

Episode Topic:

In this episode of NutraPreneur, get into the innovative world of keto-friendly supplements with our latest episode featuring Joey Savage, the visionary Chief Scientific Officer at Glaxon. We discuss how Glaxon is setting new benchmarks in the sports nutrition industry with its cutting-edge keto-friendly supplement line. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of ketogenic diets and advanced nutritional science, offering insights into the formulation challenges, solutions, and breakthroughs in creating supplements that align with keto dietary preferences while enhancing athletic performance and overall well-being.

Lessons You’ll Learn:

Throughout the episode, there will be invaluable insights into the science and strategy behind Glaxon’s successful keto-friendly supplement range. Listeners will learn about the meticulous research and innovative approaches that go into formulating effective, safe, and consumer-friendly keto supplements. Discover the importance of ingredient synergy, clinical dosages, and third-party testing in creating products that support the ketogenic lifestyle without compromising on quality or results. Joey Savage shares his expert perspective on anticipating future trends in keto supplementation, ensuring that enthusiasts and newcomers alike can navigate this evolving market with confidence.

About Our Guest:

Joey Savage is at the forefront of sports nutrition innovation as the Chief Scientific Officer at Glaxon, a company renowned for its commitment to excellence in the nutraceutical industry. Under his guidance, Glaxon has pioneered a range of keto-friendly supplements that stand out for their quality, efficacy, and adherence to ketogenic principles. With a passion for pushing the boundaries of traditional supplementation, Joey has led his team to develop products that offer unparalleled support for those following a ketogenic lifestyle, ensuring optimal performance, recovery, and health benefits. His expertise in the field is unmatched, making him a leading authority on keto-friendly sports nutrition.

Topics Covered:

This episode covers a breadth of topics related to the burgeoning field of keto-friendly supplements. We discuss the formulation complexities of creating supplements that align with the ketogenic diet, the latest advancements in ingredient technology, and the scientific rigor behind Glaxon’s product development process. Listeners will also get an exclusive look at the future of keto-friendly supplementation, exploring upcoming trends, innovative product concepts, and how consumer feedback shapes the industry. Join us as Joey Savage unpacks the challenges and triumphs of developing supplements that cater to the keto community, highlighting Glaxon’s dedication to quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction.

Our Guest: Joey Savage- The

Architect ofKeto-Friendly supplements

Episode Transcript:

Joey Savage: For any of you out there who’ve consumed a pea protein, there are all kinds of different problems with like texture and mouthfeel. And sometimes there’s like an aftertaste with it. We’ve reached a point with our vegan protein where I think that we’re finally going to get to a place where we’re going to launch it, where if you put it side by side next to a whey protein shake, they’re almost indiscernible as far as their difference, like the texture and the creaminess and all of that stuff.

 

Bethany Jolley: Welcome to NutraPreneur, the Neutral Industry podcast. I’m your host, food scientist, and nutraceuticals consultant, Bethany Jolley. Each episode, we’ll be exploring what it takes to thrive in the nutraceutical industry. From conversations with successful nutraceutical entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to tech executives whose innovations are reshaping the nutraceutical industry. We explore the innovations and trends that are shaping the next generation of nutraceutical businesses. Welcome back to NutraPreneur, your go-to podcast for ground-breaking insights into the nutraceutical world. I’m Bethany, your guide through this world of innovation. Today, we’re excited to welcome Joey Savage, the Chief Scientific Officer at Glaxon, known for its sports nutrition expertise, Glaxon offers a diverse range of dietary supplements. Joey’s innovative approach has been instrumental in positioning Glaxon at the forefront of the industry. Welcome, Joey. It’s so great to have you today.

Joey Savage: Thanks for having me on. I’m excited to be here.

Bethany Jolley: So first, I think it’d be great for you to just share with us Blackson’s philosophy and developing sports nutrition products and how this sets you apart from the market.

Joey Savage: I think that when it comes to our philosophy and setting us apart in the market when we started this company, that was the whole idea, was that we were going to be different from everybody else. And to do so, by just innovating in every way that we knew how, and overengineer certain product concepts with a new perspective than what you see as far as typical saturation in sports nutrition. So we are more mechanism-heavy. So when it comes to what’s going on at the cellular level, we are looking to elicit different events that are going on there. On a broad scale, contributes to muscle growth, weight loss, longevity, or whatever that is. So when you look at any of our products, you’re going to always notice that there’s some weird, different, unique spin that you’re not going to see in the next product on the shelf. We’ve done that to everything, from protein to creatine to just about anything that we touch.

Bethany Jolley: Gladstone is renowned for its pre-workout and muscle-building supplements. So how do you balance the innovation piece with safety and efficacy in these products?

Joey Savage: Well, it’s been a challenge from time to time. I mean, when it comes to safety, we’re never going to launch a product that’s not safe. And when it comes to efficacy, for the most part, we’re using clinical dosages. And where you do see those moments where we’re not, there’s usually a pretty solid explanation as to why. A lot of our formulas rely heavily on synergy. So usually what that means is we’ll use a combination of ingredients that elicit a bigger response than what any of these ingredients would do in isolation. So we do lean on that. Now when it comes to balancing that with the innovation side, things get a little bit tricky. I mean, as your viewers may know we’re a brand that’s in nationwide retail and GNC right now. So when we went into GNC, that made things a little bit more difficult because everything that we do has to be double-checked by their internal quality team, and it’s got to pass their litmus test before we’re able to bring something to market. We’ve got a pretty good relationship with them. So we’re always in constant contact. And in some cases, it’s been to our detriment where we’ve got to hold off on a product launch for a considerable amount of time just happening right now with one that we’re working on. Because there are certain human clinical studies that need to be completed in order for them to be happy with moving forward on taking the product to market. So it’s a delicate dance, trying to be at the forefront of innovation because there are people that want more data, there are people that are producing that data, and there are several things that are out of our control. But as long as we communicate well with all these different parties, we can still stay at the forefront as much as we can.

Bethany Jolley: In this industry, I think trust is paramount. So how does Glaxon ensure transparency and reliability in its product formulations and its marketing?

Joey Savage: There are a couple of different ways. The first thing is, with claims, under promise and overdeliver. So a lot of the claims we make are very either generalized or even border on puffery. I mean, if we’re going to say an outlandish thing, we’re going to be very outlandish about it, where it’s like no one can reasonably conclude that our gaming product is going to give you telepathic or what is it, telekinetic powers. So that’s one way. The other thing is the fact that the majority of our labels are completely transparent. I think one of the few places that we have proprietary blends is in our electrolyte blend. But if you’re pretty savvy with reading a Supplement Facts Panel, you can kind of reverse engineer that because you have to claim the amount of different salts and those nutrients that you find on the top half of the Supplement Facts Panel. So not claiming too much. The other thing is the not having proprietary blends and having a fully disclosed label. The third thing is that we do third-party testing. And when you have third-party testing to back up everything that you’re making, because we’re also a manufacturer, we’ve got a test product that’s coming in as far as the individual ingredients that we’re putting into these products. And then we also tested on the back end to make sure that the product was delivering the potency that we declared there on the Supplement Facts Panel. So it’s a three-pronged approach. Don’t make crazy claims. The second thing is having a fully disclosed label so people know exactly the amounts of everything they’re getting and having third-party testing to back that up.

Bethany Jolley: With the evolving landscape of sports nutrition, how does Glaxon leverage technology in product development and customer engagement?

Joey Savage: When it comes to that, one of the things that has made a difference for us lately is using different tools that employ artificial intelligence. If I’m looking for a new ingredient, knowing how to generate the right kind of prompts to interface with AI is pretty important. If you know exactly what you’re looking for, AI can be incredibly helpful. If you’re like, help me make a pre-workout. Well, it’s gonna make a pre-workout based on every pre-workout that it’s ever seen, and nothing’s going to be innovative about it. So using those tools is kind of interesting because that helps us on the product development side. So by using that we’re able to to comb the desert a lot easier than just simply googling my life away, which I don’t mind, but AI has certainly made it easier. There was a second thing that we did recently where we did a demonstration at, the GNC franchise convention on an AI chatbot for customer service questions.

Joey Savage: So through a combination of efforts, there are a few of us here that took a lot of the information that was already on our website as far as like, what’s in the product, how do I use it? All these simple FAQ kinds of questions, and we created a data set out of that and fed that into an AI that was able to take all that information and not only just be able to spit out those simple answers that you would anticipate that a customer would have, but also to imagine and extrapolate and get some sort of an intuition about how our products work together. When we did this demonstration at the GNC convention, they even threw a trick question at it. They’re like, well, what if you know your customer is a 14-year-old kid playing junior high football or something like that? The answer that it spits out is that you should talk to your doctor about taking supplements, but if you are going to take supplements, a simple basic whey protein powder and a multivitamin would be a really good start. And we didn’t expect that. We didn’t program that into our AI. But it was able to intuitively develop that answer on its own.

Bethany Jolley: This episode is brought to you by neutralpayments.com. If your business needs credit card processing that fully integrates with most major neutral software platforms, offers the lowest industry prices, and has built-in features like recurring billing, zero-dollar trials, and chargeback prevention, then visit us at neutralpayments.com for a free online quote. Are there any specific challenges that Glaxon has faced in product development or market positioning, and can you explain to us how you overcame them?

Joey Savage: I face hurdles all the time with product development. I mean, I touched on this earlier with like having to wait for clinical studies to be published. So GNC is like QA, and QC can feel good about it. And we’ve got product concepts that we’ve been sitting on for months or in some cases years where it’s like really just waiting on the data. And we’re working with researchers and stuff to make sure that they’ve got everything that they need in order to proceed. Sometimes that puts a very big delay in your whole operation. So a really good example of this is there was a compound that was used in some weight management or fat-burning type products called El Biba. Through our work with NB Nutrition and getting some third-party information from a company called Intertek, we were able to create a safety dossier before anybody else. So when it came to that ingredient being in GNC, we were the first ones to have it on their shelves. And that essentially gave us a head start when it came to the weight management category. And we were able to sell a whole bunch of units. This ended up catching the wind of our competitors, and they ended up using the ingredients as well. It’s one of those things where we had to wait. We had to go out of our way to get expert panel opinions on the safety of this ingredient. And it eventually got this brand new ingredient and the doors of GNC and it enabled everybody else to to follow suit.

Bethany Jolley: I think it’s still important to be kind of the first to launch something because even if something else comes out that’s very similar or has the same ingredient, I see that customers are pretty loyal to the original brand that had this ingredient, or the original brand that they purchased. Do you find that with your products?

Joey Savage: Yes and no. And it doesn’t bother me when it doesn’t happen. I’m just happy that this stuff is out there in the wild where people can get access to it. I think people are more loyal to like cost per dose. I think that they will look to us as innovators as far as like maybe if this company ended up coming out with like a cheaper version of it, that they’re still going to look to us for like the next big thing. So I think there’s long-term loyalty there, even if like in the short term someone else ends up doing it. But as long as the customer still gets what they need, as far as wanting to use that ingredient and doing it for the best that they can for the dollar, I don’t mind that at all.

Bethany Jolley: There are a lot of trends in this industry. As dietary trends change, how does Glaxon adapt its product line to cater to emerging consumer needs such as these plant-based or keto-friendly supplements?

Joey Savage: I’m not exactly a fan of trends, but we come up with new and innovative ways to approach them. We’ve got a vegan protein powder that we’ve been developing for a couple of years now. And for any of you out there who’ve consumed like a pea protein there’s all kinds of different problems with like texture and mouthfeel. And sometimes there’s like an aftertaste with it. We’ve reached a point with our vegan protein where I think that we’re finally going to get to a place where we’re going to launch it, where if you put it side by side next to a whey protein shake, they’re almost indiscernible as far as their difference, like the texture and the creaminess and all of that stuff that you’re used to in a whey protein shake is there, except for it’s 100% vegan. and as far as keto-friendly supplements. I’ve got a history of making keto-friendly products. I do think that there’s some benefit there. I think the keto fad itself, though, is kind of on its way out. I don’t think high fat, low carb is ever really on it’s on its way out. I mean, originally that was the case with the Atkins diet, and then eventually it became keto. So when it comes to like the trends and everything, we even did like a nice beauty from within the product staying ahead of most of the trends that are around. But a lot of the things that we like to do is we like to look back on other previous trends or previous market-leading categories and see how we can revisit those in a way that hasn’t been done before.

Joey Savage: I would say that we did this with creatine probably the best because what we did is we used a special type of capsule that doesn’t deploy until it gets into the small intestine. By doing that, we gave customers who previously had terrible experiences with creatine to have less bloating, less of an upset stomach, and fewer concerns over the conversion of creatine into creatinine, which some people say is like a toxic waste product. But by bypassing all these different things that were going on in the stomach, we were able to deliver the creatine directly to the small intestine into a neutral pH where it can get absorbed and you can get all the benefits without having any of the negative side effects of like the questionable gastric transit stuff that a lot of consumers suffered from. So I think looking back on previous trends with a fresh perspective is really what gives us a lot of credit when it comes to staying ahead of a lot of trends. And in a lot of cases, we like to create our own trends.

Bethany Jolley: Given your role as chief scientific officer, how do you see Glaxon influencing the future of sports nutrition and supplements?

Joey Savage: Obviously, innovation is part of our blood. But I think there’s a burden on our brand right now to reach more people and to do this on a much more massive scale. Having nationwide distribution and GNC is a good thing, but I think that there’s more that we’re going to do here in the next year, in 2024, to bring that to more people. All the while, we’re going to bring new spins to different market segments as far as different technological spins. You’re going to see us incorporating a few more aspects of the microbiome and how you are able to harness that beyond just simple immunity and gut health which is something that I’m particularly excited about. And just trying to push that envelope even further with our emerging and current understanding and how we’re actually going to take that and incorporate it into actual products.

Bethany Jolley: Are you able to give us a sneak peek into any upcoming innovations or projects at Glaxon?

Joey Savage: We have a busy 2024. we’re going to be revisiting the pre-workout category and two different ways that we’ll be going on this year and in the next two weeks, we have three product launches that will be happening. We’ll be revisiting our protein concept. Previously it was during COVID-19, so the pricing on whey protein was ridiculously high. So we’re going to bring back our protein with more servings at a lower price, thank God, because inflation has come down. Talking about the incorporation of the microbiome, we’re going to do that in two different ways. One of those is going to be for cognitive health, obviously, with gut-brain access. And the other one is for overall cardiovascular health. And that one’s going to be pretty interesting because it’s going to it’s going to use an ingredient that hasn’t been used in the market before. I found these partners that are working with us in Eastern Europe. And they had a particular probiotic strain that was pretty breathtaking. So you know that those will probably be later this year. But those are things we’re working on.

Bethany Jolley: For aspiring entrepreneurs or scientists in the nutraceutical industry, what advice would you offer based on your experience?

Joey Savage: Do what you can to identify what your brand is and what it’s about, and own that 100%. Don’t be too afraid of following too many trends because you need to enable yourself to set yourself apart from the rest of them, whether that’s on price, innovation, packaging, or even if it’s just flavor. Whatever it is that is your shtick. Do it and do it well and just own that the entire time. And don’t try to please everybody. But also be true to your own brand at the same time.

Bethany Jolley: Joey, thank you once again for joining us today. This concludes our inspiring conversation with Joey Savage of Glaxon. We’ve uncovered some fascinating insights into the cutting-edge world of sports nutrition. For our listeners wanting to learn more about Glaxo’s products, visit our website for links and details. Don’t forget to subscribe and share your thoughts on today’s episode. Join us next time on NutraPreneur for more exciting journeys in the nutraceutical landscape. Stay informed and motivated in the dynamic world of health and fitness. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of NutraPreneur. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and better yet, leave us a review as it really helps us grow the show.