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Sports nutrition company expands RTD footprint
SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN 2001, BIO-ENGINEERED SUPPLEMENTS & NUTRITION INC. (BSN) has tried to position itself to attract a "rabid" consumer base that doesn't waiver to other sports nutrition brands, says Chris Ferguson, the company's president and founder.
Now the company is taking its experience in specialty stores with drink powders and sports supplements to the mass market ready-to-drink category with energy and performance products.
"We've always positioned the company as we want to be the Nike of sports nutrition - a brand that, once somebody is a Nike shoe lover or a Nike product lover, you don't go off to Adidas," Ferguson says. "As long as we continue to innovate, we feel customers will follow us to any category."
Innovation is key to BSN's success, Ferguson says, calling his company a "one stop shop" for research and development with an in-house lab and marketing division. "We don't manufacture on-site here, but we develop everything internally," he says.
The company's internal philosophy is "innovation, never duplication," Ferguson says.
To expand into the RTD category, BSN has leveraged its N.O.-Xplode formula, which began as a powdered energy and muscle-building supplement, and its Syntha-6 protein formula for both specialty and mass market uses.
"You try to outdo yourself every time you launch something in a different way or a different format," he says. "That's the biggest challenge. As long as we continue to innovate, we don't have to worry about anyone chipping away at our market share."
LEVERAGING FORMULAS
To supplement its line of performance drink powders, BSN has launched three RTD products: N.O.-Xplode Igniter Shot and Endorush,...