Supplement Godfather

Q. What sets your PharmaFreak and SD Pharmaceuticals companies apart from others on the market? How do you decide what to put in the formulas?

A. One key thing that sets my companies apart from the rest out there is the people behind them. I never hide the fact that I’m a supplement company owner, nor does my business partner, Alex Savva. On the other hand, there are a lot of companies out there where you’ll never even know who the owners are, or if they even care about the fitness industry, or if they even use their own products!

Alex and I have dedicated nearly the last 20 years of our lives to studying the sciences of exercise physiology, nutrition, and dietary supplementation—and that’s no exaggeration. That may seem like a bit of an extreme statement to some people, but it’s true! I’ve always had a keen interest in—and deep obsession with, I guess you could say—science and human physiology.

I got my first taste of supplement science while completing my undergrad degree in kinesiology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. I constantly harassed my professors until they would let me do my research on things such as creatine, amino acids, or protein supplements while all of my classmates were pretty much taking the easy route and doing their research on the usual cookie-cutter stuff.

After completing my degree in kinesiology, I started to apply what I had learned in the field of strength and conditioning training while consulting with various athletes and everyday people. At the same time, I also took a job with one of the biggest supplement companies around, Iovate Health Sciences (the company name was still MuscleTech back in those days). That was one of the best experiences of my professional life, and I learned a lot from some of the top researchers in the industry, such as Dr. Marvin Heuer. I then moved on and headed up the R&D department at another smaller firm and began consulting with several different supplement companies in the U.S. and Canada. I also went back to school and completed my Master’s degree.

After I finished my second degree, Alex and I decided to found PharmaFreak and use all of our knowledge and experience to begin developing our first product, RIPPED FREAK. As with all our products, we create supplements that we really want and use ourselves. I mean, how can I expect someone else to use my supplements if I don’t take them myself? But you’d be surprised; a lot of sports supplement companies are run by corporations or businesspeople who don’t care about the industry or their consumers and only want to make a quick buck.

We would never release a product to market unless we truly feel like it’s the absolute best product we can make and that it’s one we would use ourselves. That being said, the quality and potency of our products is something we take very seriously—again, because we’re consuming these products ourselves, and just like you, we want the best ingredients and formulas so that we get the best results!

A lot of people ask me why we haven’t released the MASS FREAK weight gainer powder or PROTEIN FREAK protein powder in Canada or the U.S. and only in the international markets. The reason is simple: Some international markets can bear the very high ingredient cost of those two products, but if we were to release them in Canada or the USA, they would cost way too much to be affordable for our consumers based on the cost of the ingredients and formula. Now of course, we could have easily switched up the protein sources and other ingredients and replaced them with cheaper fillers and probably could have made a lot of money selling those two products in Canada and the US. But that’s definitely something we would never even consider doing. Again, you’d be surprised what some company owners would do to save on product costs so that they end up with more money in their pockets!

To read more from the Supplement Godfather, click HERE!