Terranova Synergistic Nutrition was founded in 2008 by Stephen Terrass MRNT, former Technical Director of Solgar Vitamins UK.Terranova is one of only a few broad-spectrum supplement companies in the industry that does not use fillers, binders and other manufacturing additives, and one of even fewer companies that is 100% suitable for vegans. Terranova’s formulation concept is based on providing intensely synergistic nutritional and botanical formulations which are profoundly effective, precisely balanced and gentle on the system. Currently the range comprises more than 50 nutritional and botanical products.
Stephen, who formulates all Terranova products, has spent 34 years educating natural product retailers, pharmacists, natural medicine practitioners, conventional physicians, the media and the general public in the scientific/technical aspects of nutritional and herbal therapy and nutraceutical technology.
The following interview will give you a unique inside understanding of Stephen’s thought processes which led to the development of Terranova.
Q What was your mindset at the time you decided to create your own brand?
ST Terranova was really born out of my concerns about the misguided ‘reductionist’ pharmaceutical mentality that had permeated the supplement industry since the mid-1980s. These concerns left me, on one hand, feeling disillusioned with the industry I had been in for 30 years, and on the other hand, excited by the challenge of doing something about it.
Q What was the catalyst for this?
ST The year before we launched, I was so fortunate to be invited by the highly respected botanical pioneer and founder of Eclectic Institiute, Ed Alstat, to spend a few days with he, his wife and the rest of the Eclectic team at their organic herb farm and production facilities in Oregon. This trip was life-changing in that I not only learned of the revolutionary manner in which Eclectic grew, nurtured, harvested and processed plants, but also the dramatic advantages of fresh freeze drying of botanicals and superfoods, for which Ed was the industry’s pioneer. Ed knew that I had been immersed in the nutraceutical mentality for three decades, and that I also had been a vocal proponent of the pharmaceuticalization of botanical and food ingredients. As much as I understood much of why Eclectic’s work was so ground-breaking, Ed correctly sensed that I was still too pharmaceutically minded to understand it fully. He spent those days gently, and with great wisdom, chipping away at my excessively narrow mindset about nature. Very soon after my return to London, something powerful and fundamental shifted in my mindset without any volition on my part. It was as if the wisdom of the way Ed saw nature had somehow become internalized in me, merging with my technical background and scientific study to show me the way to move forward with the development of Terranova. This merging of thought processes was certainly the primary catalyst for the concept that I adopted in formulating Terranova products. With all this in mind, it’s not surprising that Terranova products have featured Eclectic Institute’s fresh freeze dried botanical and wholefood ingredients from the very beginning.
Q How did you manage to balance your realizations about the misguided direction of the industry with the fact that your goal was to develop products that were still going to be part of that industry?
ST There were undeniable limitations to the potential effectiveness and versatility of supplements due to this pharmaceutical mentality, and at the same time, there were a couple of elements about this mentality which were still worth retaining. From the beginning, the approach of Terranova has been to take what was salvageable from the nutraceutical industry and RADICALLY evolve it in a direction that was infinitely more holistic and more scientific. It was also about proving that nature works best when it is in it’s unadulterated form – not just using ingredients that are originally from nature, but which have been altered by technology to the point where their biochemical integrity is barely recognisable compared to its original form. So essentially, Terranova became a deeply holistic, yet scientifically-based, marriage between unadulterated botanical/wholefood ingredients and technologically advanced nutraceutical ingredients. It’s also worth mentioning that this direction was also VERY heavily focused on product purity, which is why from the beginning we adopted the policy of not allowing the use of fillers, binders or any other manufacturing additives.
Q How did your radical approach reflect itself in Terranova as a business?
ST It could be argued that our way of doing business is almost as radically different as our products. We felt from the very beginning that our business ethics and principles had to be consistent with the principles behind our ingredient standards and formulation concept. As one example, this is reflected in our surprisingly affordable prices, which came as quite a shock to some in the industry. Producing nutritional supplements without the use of manufacturing additives – and especially with such a high concentration of unadulterated botanical ingredients – is significantly more expensive than when additives are used. Added to this is the fact that the vast majority of the weight of almost every Terranova product is comprised of botanicals, which are usually more expensive than nutraceutical ingredients (such as isolated vitamins and minerals). And to top it all off, such a high percentage of our ingredient weight comprises freeze dried botanicals and wholefoods from a single organic farm, rather than just getting all of our plant ingredients from the highly competitive herbal brokers who supply much of the industry. The end result is that although our products cost us so much more to make, this is not reflected in their retail prices, as we felt from the beginning that the right decision was to reduce our own profit in order to keep prices more accessible to the public.
Another business decision was to make Terranova a ‘safe haven’ for people who choose a vegetarian or vegan diet, whether for health reasons, ethical reasons or due to their religious affiliation. Vegan products are relatively easy to find, but finding a broad-spectrum vitamin company (i.e. 25 or more products) which is 100% vegan is nearly impossible, anywhere in the world. There are currently only a couple that I’m aware of.
Source: http://terranovahealth.com/
