Year-old supplements firm sees rising sales

Living Gracefully LLC — a year-old Reno start-up whose tagline is “Be ALIVE while you’re alive” — tells us what we’d all like to hear.

“You don’t have to assume that just because you’re getting older, you’re getting weaker,” says Brenda Do, a direct marketing writer and the company’s chief trumpeter. “We should be able to enjoy every moment we have.”

That’s the impetus behind Living Gracefully dietary supplements. The line consists of four products, collectively called Total Core Health, that target the problems that plague people as they age.

“It’s all caused by the same four issues,” says Do. “We’re about repairing your health from the inside out and from the top down,” says Do.

The company was hatched by Living Gracefully’s chief living officer, Mike McNeill, after he realized his aging parents, who had survived serious illnesses due to their wholesome lifestyles, were healthier than their 40-something son. He went in search of ways to improve his own health and unsatisfied with what he found, came up with his own formula for addressing what ailed him.

The company’s four products — Heart + Brain Power, Energy + Immune Strength, Anti-inflammatory + Antioxidant and Prebiotic + Probiotic Restore — are manufactured in a Georgia plant because the founders were unable to find a local site that adhered to stringent current good manufacturing practices. Everything else, including distribution, is located in Reno.

So far, the products have been a big hit with athletes, including those practicing martial arts, who help the company promote the line through word of mouth and social media. Product sales have climbed every month since Living Gracefully launched its web site — www.livegracefully.com — in January, says Do.

Next up, the startup plans to introduce additional supplement lines, including one called Growing Gracefully for children and another for the already old called Aging Gracefully.

Living Gracefully also adheres to what it calls Giving Gracefully: a percent of its sales go to Adopt a Vet Dental Program, a Reno-based nonprofit which provides free dental care to local low-income military veterans.