Swanson Health Products Brings Vigor to Latin America

Swanson Health Products is a Fargo-based company providing vitamins, supplements, and other health products across the globe. Founded in 1969, the company is a leading global firm in the area of natural health products.

Swanson Health Products was seeking to expand into Latin America, and given their reputation, breadth of products and capabilities, they were faced with a unique situation - far more demand than supply. This led to the question, “Where do we go if we only have x numbers of bottles to sell?” They connected with the Rural Export Center in Fargo and received in-depth Country Reports on top 3 Latin American countries, including profiles on 41 potential partners in the 3 countries. The information provided by the Rural Export Center (REC) allowed Swanson Health Products to rank markets based on factors specific to their business, including market size for vitamins, places where consumers would need their products the most, where growth potential is highest, and much more. “Having knowledge is better than nodding and trusting,” Jim Hamel, CFO, said, when speaking of the data available to them. “The research was helpful to optimize relationship with our partners.”

With the information, Swanson Health Products was able to narrow their focus on marketing firms to four potential solid partners. “Getting a comprehensive contact list was invaluable; and being able to share that with our new distributor allows us to hit the ground running.” With great success from this work, Swanson Health Products is already eager for the next opportunity to work with REC. “Now that we know what REC offers, we feel that is kind of like a drug. We will come back over and over!” Hamel continued, saying “The REC is an economic research service that you can use to find partners, or you can use the information to help your in-country partners expand.”