This past weekend has seen a flurry of quickly removed posts appear and disappear on various UK and even US Bodybuilding forums. Relating to an apparent (did it or did it not happen?) raid of Vydex. I'll get in my disclaimer now: all is rumor and 'word on the street' until we hear otherwise. But still... what a weekend!
Vydex, as well as making their own branded products, is a contract manufacturer of a few small to medium brands here in the UK who are based in Cardiff. Claims of a raid by Trading Standards appeared on Friday with the word being that TS took away samples of several products. Posts on several of the larger UK forums appeared only to be removed just as quickly.
One giant clue as to which companies they were making products for or providing ingredients too seems to have been the rather foolishly over-looked use of a sweetener they called 'Dextrolose' which is a trade marked name used by one company only. See above. Some of the companies with Dextrolose in their product ingredient descriptions then made the claim that their product was aspartame free when, in fact, Dextrolose is a combo which includes aspartame. It's of interest (and not hard to search for) that Vydex has a few smaller companies which they seem to own interests in so can claim to have supplied ingredients to rather than made products for. A search of former employees and directors throws light upon this.
Rather than me blog who and what I'll let you take advantage of Google and search for yourself. See what brands come up. If they are furiously altering their sites today check out the labels on products in your gym. Google will, of course, take a few days to catch up so even with changes made it'll direct you to their sites. There's a list on one forum which makes it easy to check. As one member commented on Bodybuildingpro 'surely the companies asking someone to make them a product should know something about said product'?
The bigger issue, as indeed it should be, is one of the serious levels of competition that has been piling up the last few years. When, as per another forums comment, your local gym and instructors were producing their own labeled products at prices BELOW the rest of the market questions needed to be asked. Least of all is 'how can they beat the big boys?'. Answer they can't unless they're bending the rules.
It's simple economics. If WPC, as is, costs around £5.00 a kilo wholesale and then you add in flavours etc, add also the usual overheads, margins and so on then anyone offering 2.25kg for £25.00 delivered is selling you magic beans.
Let's see if it goes quiet and blows over or whether people will be talking about which brands CAN be trusted when the industry and consumers meet at Bodypower. See you there.
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