Meravita: a revolution in the vitamin market

Qualified specialists, innovative technology, and microscopic accuracy – with these ideas in mind, Meravita produces personalised vitamins in its Estonian laboratory. The company takes into account the specificities and needs of its customers depending on their lifestyle and health conditions.

“We create conceptions and products that help people to remain healthy,” Swen Uusjärv, Meravita’s director, says, introducing the company’s activities. “Today we are focused on natural products that can help people stay healthy and active for a longer time. If the person has a need to visit a doctor, then he is actually ill already. Instead of dealing with the consequences, it is more reasonable to prevent the disease and to ensure that the immune system is strong enough, the organs are working, and that there is a healthy mind in a healthy body.”

Uusjärv explains that ensuring that people would feel good, and maintain strong health and vitality is important for Meravita. One of the company’s major objectives is to produce personalised vitamins and minerals, according to each customer’s personal needs so that they could improve and support their health.

“We have realised that most of the people understand the world of vitamins wrong. It is thought that a course of vitamins needs to be done occasionally. However, we need some of the vitamins and minerals on a daily basis,” Uusjärv explains. That is why Meravita produces unique vitamins and minerals for each customer in order to cover the deficiencies resulting from their lifestyle and eating habits. “At the moment, we don’t focus on treating humans; we do not focus on so-called courses either. Through our products we focus on supporting peoples’ health and well-being all year round,” Uusjärv adds.

Microscopic accuracy

In order to understand which vitamins and minerals the customer needs, clients are asked to fill in a questionnaire sheet consisting of 34 questions. With this questionnaire, the particularities of the customer’s body are mapped. “That way we get an adequate picture of the customer’s health indicators and eating habits and on that basis we determine the appropriate set of vitamins, micro- and macro elements,” Uusjärv says. Then, based on the customer’s completed questionnaire, a recipe is drawn up, according to which the capsules of minerals, both fat- and water-soluble vitamins are prepared. The capsules are placed in blisters, which are packaged and then sent to the customer.

“Our client managers deal with every customer individually with the aim to provide personalised support and, if necessary, specialist advice for the selection of products and their integration into the customer’s diet,” Uusjärv specifies.

In manufacturing products, Meravita uses natural raw materials with a higher level of quality that have been selected carefully and are GMO-, gluten- and preservative-free. “There is no such thing as “cheap and high-quality”. When buying in starting materials, we choose the products with higher quality, which is why our product prices are a little bit higher than the average price level,” Uusjärv notes.

“The need for our services has resulted from the increasingly more intense social and physical environment. People are pressured by competition on daily basis, which results in stress and wrong eating behaviour that systemically violates the person’s own health,” Uusjärv describes and adds that the company’s mission is to raise people’s awareness. “Peoples’ health should be nurtured and supported and adding dietary supplements, such as vitamins and minerals into peoples’ daily intake helps to compensate for their often monotonous diet.  I see that there is such a great need, but the awareness hasn’t followed. Through our actions, we are trying to bring this knowledge home,” Uusjärv explains. “A customer group, who is coming along without philosophy, is quietly emerging.”

Innovative technology

Meravita was founded in 2012 but its development began in 2010, when it started to build the first prototypes for the factory. “The main problem at that moment was that there were no devices for making unique vitamins,” Uusjärv recalls. The main challenge that became evident for the Estonian scientists involved in the project was the assembling of various robots and setting them up to standard equipment.

The laboratory was finished in 2014 and the first personalised vitamins reached customers in 2015. As of September 2016, the firm’s laboratory equipment was ready for producing personalised minerals.

A professional team with various academic backgrounds has participated in the preparation of the product, including biochemists, biologists, nutritionists, pharmacists, and food and genetic engineers.

“Launching such a company was very, very difficult,” Uusjärv notes and adds that the whole system was built so that the company would comply with the classification of a drug manufacturer.

“Today, the company is engaged in making food supplements based on plant extracts but we are planning to produce drugs soon,” Uusjärv says. He adds that it is only natural, since there is a thin line between producing drug and food supplements.

Meravita’s product development and laboratory are both located in Estonia. Uusjärv says that it is favourable to test their business model in Estonia. In doing so, he confirms that they plan to start exporting very soon, with plans to enter the Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, and Finnish markets.

“Right now we are in a phase where we plan to improve our manufacturing capacity,” Uusjärv says and adds that in order to do so, they must first of all invest in product development.

The company is open to any cooperation offers. “Our aim is to find new partners and markets, broaden the raw materials and new technical solutions circle,” Uusjärv lists. He adds that of course they are open to new innovative ideas that fit with their ideas – summed up – everything that will help keeping people healthy.