Founded | 2008
Headquarters | Irving, TX
Top Executive | Jay Shafer, Founder and CEO
Products | Health and Wellness
Everyone loves a good glow-up. And as makeovers go, Zurvita’s is particularly extreme. Originally launched in 2008 to a room of 300 people, Zurvita began with service-based products. It was in 2011, when Zeal for Life was introduced, that Zurvita launched into exponential growth. Now nearly a decade later, despite management changes, a global pandemic and technology pitfalls, a new era of leadership with a united team and passionate field have prevailed and pivoted to take Zurvita on its next phase of success.
Positive Vibes. Positive Change.
Zurvita was founded on three founding principles. First and foremost, to build an organization that would honor and glorify God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Second, to develop a company with humble leadership. And finally, to create an environment where people could win at every level.
In 2011, Zurvita entered the health and wellness arena, with the unique proposition of Zeal for Life, a clean nutritional powdered drink featuring stabilized rice bran and gamma oryzanol. “We decided to make a significant impact on people from all walks of life by offering clean, nature-based products and life-changing opportunities, where anyone can succeed,” recalled Jay Shafer, Zurvita’s Founder and CEO.
“Zeal is an all-in-one nutritional drink mix that combines essential vitamins, superfoods, adaptogens, antioxidants and botanical extracts in one simple solution—and it gets results,” said Dr. Scott Vanlue, Chairman of Zurvita’s Scientific Advisory Board. “It’s one of the most comprehensive functional food supplements on the planet, filling inevitable gaps in your diet—like nutritional mortar for your health.”
These incredible benefits began generating incredible results. Zurvita consultants loved the product and so did their customers. And just like that, Zurvita had found a way to help people win.
The Game Changer
With health and wellness being an extremely crowded space. Through extensive research and clinical trials, they found product differentiation through the incredible health benefits of a surprising ingredient: stabilized rice bran. And through its proprietary and delicious formula, Zeal for Life was birthed.
“When rice bran is amended with the key functional compound gamma oryzanol, the combination offers diverse benefits and supports the body in a variety of ways,” explained Scott. “This includes overall cardiovascular health, cholesterol management, immune function, antioxidant activity, blood glucose control and weight management. While rice bran contains over 100 balanced nutrients like oils, fibers and proteins, gamma oryzanol is a uniquely rich source of antioxidants and anti-inflammatories.”
Known as “stabilized rice bran,” the rice bran and gamma oryzanol combination is an unstoppable superfood that is the driving force behind Zeal. A peer-reviewed, published clinical trial showed that in just 28 days of drinking Zeal twice daily, 85 percent of people felt better, with a 23 percent increase in vigor and energy and improvements to overall mood. Fatigue was down 10 percent; anger was down nine percent; and anxiety was down 11 percent.
“The study showed that Zeal is an ideal foundational food, offering an impressive combination of health-boosting ingredients per serving, including 56 whole food nutritional elements and over 120 vitamins, minerals and antioxidants,” said Scott. “In fact, we tested it and noted it would take 55 pills to replace the nutritional power of one single scoop of Zeal.”
“With the success of Zeal, we made stabilized rice bran the golden thread in all our functional-food clean nutritional products; Zeal, Zundora, Zurge and our Zurvita Protein all spotlight the benefits of rice bran as a unique differentiator. Zurvita is the only company in the world that offers this unique approach to maximizing rice bran’s tremendously diverse benefits,” added Jay.
While Zeal remains the company’s flagship product, many other successful products have been added to the lineup since 2011. However, this year has been particularly busy for Zurvita, with the launch of three innovative products featuring stabilized rice bran as an essential ingredient:
- Zundora is a blackberry-flavored collagen gel packed with exclusive, powerful ingredients that help restore skin to its youthful glow. The proprietary nutrient complex features Verisol hydrolyzed collagen peptides, which are clinically proven to improve the health of hair, skin and nails; reduce wrinkles; and increase skin elasticity as well as exclusive golden tomato extract, Lumenato.
- Zurge is a proprietary coffee blend that sharpens memory and increases mental clarity with potent ingredients that support brain health. In addition to stabilized rice bran, Zurge’s exclusive blend includes CognatiQ®: a natural, patented extract which is clinically proven to increase focus while reducing brain fog. It also includes Coffeeberry Cascara, also known as the coffee superfruit. Finally, Zurge includes Lion’s Mane Mushroom, which is the only mushroom clinically shown to support nerve growth for cognitive and neurological health.
- All-Natural Advanced Protein Formula contains 20 grams of isolate and concentrate whey, as well as pea protein and superfoods like stabilized rice bran. This science-backed protein formula is available in both chocolate and vanilla flavors. It accelerates metabolism to help burn calories, controls appetite to help you feel fuller longer, helps maintain healthy blood sugar levels and speeds muscle recovery after a workout.
“We’re committed to bringing our customers the most powerful ingredients and superfoods available,” said Dr. Van Lue. “Our products have built a following with those eager to share the goodness of better health. People are seeing their health restored, building healthy habits and ultimately sharing wellness with others. The testimonials and results I hear are incredible. It’s truly humbling.”
Change Agents
From the beginning, Zurvita’s founders sought to implement their core values in the field and beyond. “Our first founding principle is about honoring and glorifying God,” explained Jay. “We do that by loving on people, which is key to an incredible culture internally and through our thousands of Consultants within Zurvita. Our mission is to empower people to believe in themselves and take control of their health and happiness. “We strive to be a company of provision, for our consultants to provide for their families, put food on the table, pay their mortgage, etc. We want our customers to achieve better health—and, as we do this, we give back. That is the foundation of our Zeal for Meals initiative. Our goal is to feed one million and beyond.”
Globally, it’s estimated that 10 percent of the world’s population—about 828 million people—go to bed on an empty stomach each night. “Our goal is to provide one million meals to hungry families,” said Jay. “To reach this goal, we’ve partnered with SERV International. Through this program we donate three meals for every Zeal canister sold, and in May we added Zundora and Zurge as giveback products as well. Zeal for Meals is our effort to give back to the community—locally and globally—by fighting hunger and providing other life-giving services to those in need.”
Zeal for Meals is dedicated to bringing hope and healing to communities like Turkana, Kenya. As a pastoral community, they depend on rain to keep their livestock alive, but a five-year drought has caused dehydration, starvation and death. “Our teams recently went to Turkana. We brought food, shelter, medical help and the word of God to the locals,” explained Jay. “We were able to give them hope. Our entire Zurvita family made it possible. Our philanthropic mission is to feed hope and spread compassion. So we are looking to expand our partnership with SERV International beyond feeding the hungry. Our field is a very kindhearted community. Every time we hit 200K meals, we will also be sponsoring a child from House of Hope in addition to the feeding the hungry.”
To date, Zurvita has provided over 900,000 meals to communities in need and is inching closer to their million-meal goal.
Making Change
Having reinvented themselves, overcoming major changes and garnering some really big wins over the last decade, Zurvita’s team is proud of how far they’ve come and is driven to keep the momentum going.
“Staying faithful to our founding principles has enabled our success,” said Jay. “Zurvita continues to be a family-owned brand led by faith that aims to provide a way for others to transform lives with an easy and accessible way to better health.”
Just this last year Zurvita has expanded their product portfolio and introduced a new antioxidant collagen gel with exclusive and clinically tested ingredients in its beauty blend formula and a brain-health coffee featuring Lion’s Mane Mushroom.
The team has focused on their strategic growth pillars, and a new VIP Perks Loyalty Program was introduced at their national Convention, Zurvita Fest, this past May. It has quickly garnered incredible results, especially towards retention and reorder rates, helping the field keep happy and engaged customers.
“We are consistently driving toward positive change, so our focus will always be on loving people and impacting lives for the better,” concluded Jay. “We know we are in the relationship business. When we keep our field and our customers as top priority, together we will thrive.”
From the October 2023 issue of Direct Selling News magazine.
