Do We Really Need Supplements? | Behind the Brand

Dan, so good to have you. We we've had some great conversations before this, but I'm just so excited to share your knowledge and your mission and your brand with everyone on this channel because we're all about you know exposing and supporting great people and great brands here and. So please, let's start with what is the brand like? What did it start out as and where did the name come from?

Yes. So Utsi Naturals is the brand. And yeah, so the, the brand itself, the name was actually my great-grandmother's name. Her name was Ursula and they called her Utsi. She was a German immigrant to the United States around the early 1900s. She probably should have been called Utsi, but it was Utsi and that's what we called the brand at this point. But yeah, the little backstory is this is a family-owned brand. My family has been in the supplement industry for about 40-plus years. My dad started a company called Orthomolecular Products, which is one of the brands that's in the physician channel. So they sell to doctors all over the US who then sell to their patients. Um, so they've been doing that for a long time and it's actually pretty wild. But, uh, so I'm second generation there, but my dad's dad actually used to work in early vitamin manufacturing companies, uh, in like the '50s and '60s in Chicago. And then, uh, up into different sections of Wisconsin where we're at today, we're in Lake Geneva now. So, wow. Probably potentially third generation actually, which is wild.

That's impressive. So for the, for the products that are going to the practitioners and whatnot, what was the original focus of that brand? And because clearly, and see, it's funny because you just said how to say it, and I, and I always go Utsi, but it's Utsi. Utsi. I always want to say Utsi. So Utsi is really more Direct-to-consumer, right? Retail. Um, so what are the differences of the brands and how did, how did the original kind of motivate? Because they're not, it's not the same products, right? At all.

Right. Yeah. So, um, yeah, that's a great question. So Ortho, um, that, that brand was started, uh, to provide, uh, clinical-grade products to doctors around the US. A lot of doctors, if they're recommending a product to their patients, they need the product to work. And so when it comes to the ingredient selection, the dosing, quality control, all those standards are just much higher than what you typically would see on the shelf at a CVS or a Target or wherever you're getting your supplements.

Trader Joe's, a lot of people don't realize like Trader Joe's has got very little amounts of actual active Ingredients.

Yeah, and I mean we see these reports all the time about supplements that are not hitting label claim. There's just a huge piece on lead in protein powder that yeah, I saw that one. Yeah, so like pretty wild in the consumer space. And so we always had this background in manufacturing and kind of at the upper end of the supplement kind of chain, I guess you could say. And so our thought process. Was how can we take some of that knowledge that we have in manufacturing and ingredient selection and then put that into consumer brand? So that's what we built out Etsy. So while we have different formulas from our other brand, we use a lot of the same manufacturing processes or ingredient selections that we, that we already have access to. So we're trying to take that premium grade product that's usually gated away to doctors and make that available to consumers.

Nice. And when you started Utsi, was it first collagen? Like, what was the first product that you were like, okay, this is what we want to push out? Or was it multiple products?

Yeah, we launched— that's a great question. Uh, I'd have to put my thinking cap on here.

But I associate you guys with collagen and I'm not sure why. Maybe that's just because that's the product I was originally introduced to.

Yeah. So we've kind of gone through a couple of different iterations, uh, over our time. But we initially started with a high-end multivitamin, multimineral. That's something that we've always been big believers in, my dad and myself, is how can we get bioavailable minerals and high-end premium vitamins into our systems? And so kind of one of our theses is like, man is made from the dust. We believe God created man out of the dust of the earth. And so it's like minerals are really important for us. And so we need to make sure that we're getting those minerals into our bodies. A lot of it's not present in the food systems with, with non-organic growers and all sorts of nasty processing. And so that was our big one, was starting with Essentially You. That's our daily multi-nutrient product. And so that was kind of like the baseline of like, hey, if you can take this, this covers a ton of the bases for you on a nutrient basis. And then if you want to get fancy, you can start adding on top of that. So that was kind of our big push there with multivitamin, multimineral in one. It's actually 6 capsules per day, which is huge. People give us flack all the time, but we're like, hey, you can't fit everything your body needs in one tiny little baby capsule. Just doesn't work.

So yeah. How do you guys accommodate though? You've been in the business and as you said, it's a family-run business. So how do you accommodate for that? You know, every person's different, you know, they're different sizes. So are you trusting that they're getting tested, or do you just kind of find, well, hey, this is the, this is the amount of capsules that we find works for everybody? Or how do you guys distinguish that?

Yeah, so, um, there's, uh, guidelines for like RDAs, or recommended daily allowances, that you're looking at. And so when you go to formulate a product, you can kind of, um, go off of those, and then you can look at what's standard, uh, American consumption of diet, and then what are places that you can supported in. So that's kind of one of the big things there. And then there's also some different ingredients that we really like that honestly, I think should be a little bit higher, like vitamin D. So some of those different materials, you just formulate based off of what, like, more cutting-edge research is showing versus kind of like the old guidelines that might've been set in the '80s, for instance.

Yeah. Right. Because the guidelines are always kind of moving and shifting as we learn more.

Yeah, exactly.

What now? What's motivating? So clearly quality ingredients is very important, but what motivates where you guys look? Like, are you are you just looking overall at like just general health, or are you kind of looking at what's going on in our modern world? Like, what's what dictates what new products you start to introduce or or the the avenues you start to go down?

Yeah, that's a great question. And that's kind of a thesis we've been putting together as a team is basically the world around us is toxic, right? Like, like the foods we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, there are toxins everywhere. And so it's how can we help people thrive in our modern toxic world? So that's kind of our guiding light for how we build products now. So it's like, what are, You know, even if you're eating all organic foods, you live in a pristine countryside, all these different types of things, you can still have, you know, crazy heavy metal loads or exposure to glyphosate or microplastics. Even this past week, my daughters— I have 5 daughters, and they went to a functional pediatrician, and they tested high for a couple different heavy metals, which is crazy because we live on an organic farm.

Yeah.

uh, you know, in the countryside and pretty darn good diet, a lot of, you know, organic foods. And yet, even despite all that kind of, you know, perfect environment, I would say, there's still these things that slip in. So, um, our, our thought process is how can we help people and support their bodies against all these toxins that they're, you know, exposed to so they can thrive?

I think the, the microplastics is It's such a great point, first of all, that you could be eating really clean, you could be living in a clean environment, and yet you're still getting potentially a toxin or something that you don't wanna get. So, so on one level, it's like there's so much we can't control. If it's coming from the ground, it's possible that it's gonna have heavy metals. That's just possible. So—

Yeah.

I, I think where you're going with this new product you have in terms of helping people detox the microplastics and other toxins is really important. And I talk about this a lot, that sometimes we're so focused on what we're eating but we're not focused on how it either absorbs and out and/or how the toxins leave our body. So that we, we really need to be focusing on the detoxification pathways. So can you talk about this new product you just recently launched, um, the, the Microplastic Detox supplement? And, and What you're ultimately trying to do with it? Like, what is it activating in you or supporting in you?

Yeah, um, like you'd mentioned, the exposures are ubiquitous. Like, it's everywhere. And so, um, now the beautiful thing is, is God created our bodies with these detox pathways to handle a lot of the stress that's thrown at us. So that's a really awesome thing. But the thing is, is our exposures can get so high that we can't catch up. It's like the bucket is not emptying fast enough. Um, and so that's where, uh, sometimes having more targeted nutrition, uh, can be really helpful through a supplement, uh, format. And so that's why we built the Microplastics Detox product, to help your body to essentially upregulate those, those detox pathways that are eliminating microplastics naturally so that you can, uh, remain in good health. So that's kind of how we look at it.

No. So what are the ingredients that you guys have identified that support that process?

Yeah. So one of the major ones is sulforaphane, which is a phytochemical that is found in cruciferous vegetables.

Yeah, like broccoli and whatnot. Yeah.

And one interesting thing with that is we, we like broccoli a lot. Broccoli sprouts are the highest in sulforaphane, except we did a survey Uh, and we found a supplier that has this black kale material in central Italy, and it's shown that this black kale has higher amounts of sulforaphane than anything else that they've tested.

Wow.

And so it actually—

In its sprouted form or just in its general form?

Um, so it's the seeds. So the—

Oh, the seeds. It's in the seeds. Yeah.

So this, uh, blows everything else away. And so this is kind of a recent, um, Finding, but it's pretty awesome. So, so we've been working with this supplier to kind of bring that ingredient to market. And kind of the idea there is you get a better bang for your buck when you have a higher potency material than kind of the standard broccoli product.

That's incredible. And so what are you finding when people— because this, this product's now been out, is it 2 months or 4 months?

Yeah, a month or 2, something like that.

Oh yeah, so I imagine you, you tested it prior to putting out. So what kind of, uh, what are you seeing? Like, are— like, what do people report? Like, what happens to your body when you detox microplastics? Because I, my— I suspect that most people don't even realize how they're affecting their day-to-day. So what do people experience when it— they're, you know, through the detox?

Yeah, so we're still gathering a lot of that initial, like, consumer feedback as the product gets out into the market. So, and our plans are actually to run clinical studies to show impact over time. Some of this stuff is actually really tricky to track, and it's actually pretty wild. So I've talked with testing companies all over the world, in Finland, there's one guy in the US, it's pretty wild. So just even trying to quantify microplastics is actually very difficult. And the issue is, is microplastics, like these, they're these polymer chains. And what can happen is those break down and degrade and it becomes smaller and smaller and smaller, and it becomes what's called a nanoplastic. And so it's like, it's not really going away, it's just getting smaller and smaller and harder to detect. So that's one of the big challenges for us is finding out how we can track the microplastics that people are seeing and exposure rates. And so I've been running myself a personal one-of-one test, 'cause I just have myself. Uh, and so, uh, I, uh, have my, so I have my baseline results and then my second test, actually I have to do it tomorrow. It's kind of my next date. And then I'll be able to see what is the impact that I have in my body over a 30, 40-day time period. So a lot of this is happening in real time and we're pretty excited to see the results.

What are you, what's the hypothesis? Do you think people will experience Better energy, cleaner thinking? Like, what is, what is the effect you think these microplastics are having on our health? I guess that's ultimately what, what we're identifying.

100%. So, um, a lot of the research, uh, is just starting to be conducted in humans. Uh, the initial research was actually, a lot of it was more environmental, looking at how it affected like cuttlefish in Southeast Asia and, you know, kind of more random stuff. And it started to work up the food chain. Um, and so now, uh, we're just starting to get our first human clinical, uh, studies showing impacts. But the big thing is, is it leads to, um, inflammation throughout the body. And so how I think about that is, is you have all these particles that become embedded in your tissues, and that is creating an inflammation response. Um, and so if you think about it, like if you didn't have microplastics, you'd have a battery that's at 100%. But if you start to have all these little particles all throughout your body, what that's doing is it's having this low-grade inflammation effect across the board. And so now that battery, instead of being at 100%, it might be at 80%, 70%, 60%. So that's kind of the hypothesis that we have right now. And, you know, the crazy thing is, is a lot of this research is still being done. Like, it's not settled science yet. And We think that this is such a big issue. We can't wait for everything to be done and have all these, you know, perfect studies showing everything that's happening. We know that people are exposed now, so we need to be taking matters into our own hands and creating products to help people now. So that's part of the process, uh, is being iterative as new science comes out, is updating and making tweaks as we go.

I definitely think you're ahead of the curve. I mean, I think there's awareness right now, but there's not a lot of solutions, right? 'Cause sadly plastics don't seem to be going away anytime soon. Um, it's, it's amazing to me how much they're showing up even in things people don't realize. Like, have you seen that one, um, video where they're showing like you disintegrate a Coke can and how it's actually lined with plastic?

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's wild. I, I would say I'm shocked, but I'm not shocked at this point because I've seen so much stuff. It's crazy.

Yeah, I— it's, it amazes me how prevalent it is. And, and, you know, there is that other consumer side of— I, I think people don't realize, like, when I think about foods, as I've been in— that's kind of my focus, right? Like, just food packaging, it's always going to be coated with something. Now the question is what. It's going to be either a foil or, or some kind of plastic or Those are the main 2, really. And, and it's because if it's any kind of cardboard or anything like that, there has to be a layer where they ensure that the food is not getting contaminated, right? But they're only focusing on certain contaminants. They're not thinking about, well, what about the plastic that could be contaminating the food, right?

Yeah. Well, I mean, especially— yeah, the one thing I think too is like a lot of, a lot of stuff is lined with BPA. EPA, right? Um, and, and the issue there is that can leach in, especially if you have an acid involved. So like acids or heat plus tomato sauce, right? Exactly.

Yeah, right. And of course, and then heat, as you mentioned, like that was the other big one that started probably 10 years back where people were like, oh, wait a second, these plastic bottles with the water. And, um, when those are dropped off at like a grocery store, they're usually left in the sun. They're getting heated up and then, you know, is that, is that plastic then leaching into the water?

Yeah. Yeah. And the research shows that yes, it is leaching into the water. And it's, that's one of the things that I do not do is drink out of like any sort of plastic bottle, even Nalgene or, you know, kind of things like that that are like hard plastics. It's a complete no-go for me after all this research that I've read.

So what, uh, so we could kind of provide some value for people watching this other than just, of course, learning about your— the value that your brand is bringing to, to their health and to their wellness. Um, but what are some things that people should be doing? Like, so we just mentioned not using plastic bottled water. What should they be using? What materials do you think people should be focusing on when they're consuming edibles or in their regular day? Day-to-day exploits?

Yeah. So, uh, anytime stuff goes into your body, so water's one of the big ones, uh, is, you know, making sure you have a clean water supply for your drinking. Um, so whether that's using like a, an RO system or my family, we just use a Berkey, uh, on our, on our countertop, um, to just make sure you have clean filtered water and then trying to limit your exposure to, you know, plastic, uh, drinks and stuff. Anything like anything in the gas station, generally not great, uh, or convenience store. Um, that's a huge one.

Are you— so you're a glass or a stainless steel, or what's your, what's your focus when you're, um, for your containers?

Yeah, so, uh, I, I like both. Um, at the office here, I use a glass water. Uh, also for my Starbucks, we have a little Starbucks next to us. I use— I don't know if I can show this, but Uh, it's just a ceramic or something, ceramic mug that I take. So, you know, if I'm getting something to go, I always bring a Stanley or whatever with me and have them just fill that. So that's a huge one. The other one is where you store foods. Um, so just making sure that you use a glass container. Uh, you know, they make— Costco sells those like the little, uh, food takeaway trays, the black with the clear lid. You know, everyone's got a million of those. Don't use them, throw them away. They're not great, especially if you have hot food steaming in there. And then if there's acids, acidic foods like tomatoes, like you mentioned, that's not great. So, uh, you know, easy swaps there, just, just get some glass, uh, glass food containers. Um, and you just try and limit that daily exposure.

Do you take it as far as like when you purchase foods that are supposed to be microwaved and a lot of them, well, really all of them will say like, oh, just cut, cut the edge and then heat it up in this, and it's clearly a plastic, you know, packaging. Do you take it as far as like, hey, remove it from that packaging and put it in the glass, or put it, you know, do you go that far if you are microwaving anything?

Um, that's a good question. I, I actually don't consume a lot of foods like that that are pre-prepared for microwave. Um, so I've kind of Essentially eliminate a lot of that. I know like, um, there's been some pretty nasty research coming out on like microwave popcorn and things like that. So I would try and limit my exposure to those if needed. And yeah, if you can, I would throw it in a, you know, just a ceramic or glass bowl to heat it up. Um, so that's best. I think of like some of the, like the ramen noodle or not ramen noodles, like the pho noodle boxes. Those are great, but, uh, you know, not great to heat those up either. So yeah, I would put it in a separate bowl. Yeah.

Before we end this segment, I think it would be great to touch base on collagen because you guys do have a collagen product, and I know from our previous conversations that you have a lot of knowledge around the differences of these collagens that are out there. And as collagen is kind of a big trending product, can you just touch base on the difference between Collagen peptides, like, because I think there's a 1, 2, and 3, right? Can you talk about those and then what people should be looking for when they are purchasing collagen? And then lastly, why should they even be consuming collagen?

Yeah. Um, so collagen is one of the most, uh, like prevalent proteins or amino acid building blocks in our body, uh, especially in our skin, uh, but also in our bones and hair and other areas. Uh, so super beneficial. Um, now the different types, uh, there's the, they all have kind of these different, uh, benefits for you. Uh, but type 1 is typically you're going to find it in cow or, uh, from fish. Um, and that has benefits for your kind of general skin, bones, tendons, ligaments, et cetera.

And is it typically coming from like, if it's cow, is it coming from the skin or could it be coming from other parts as well?

Um, I think they're pulling it from the, uh, like the, the, the gelatin, uh, you know, kind of process, uh, which would be kind of all different parts of the cow.

Okay. Like bone and skin. Why not? Yeah. Okay. And then for marine, it's same thing, right? They're pulling it from the bone and from fish skin.

Yes. Yep. And then for type 2, um, for us personally, we use, uh, uh, a type 2 collagen that comes from, um, Basically chicken sternum, which sounds crazy, but they found this molecule called type 2 undenatured peptides. And so what that does is it actually helps to support your tendon and ligament health. And it actually doesn't work as a building block like a typical collagen, but it actually works as a signaling agent in your gut for your body to support your, your tendons and ligaments. So that's a huge one.

Yeah.

And then type 3 is your kind of your more standard bovine hide. Um, and that, uh, can have different sizes. So if you have like larger sizes, that's what's used for bone health. Um, medium sizes of that is more of like for tendon and ligament. Uh, and then the small, uh, small particles there are used for skin. So those are kind of your, your main one there.

Okay. I feel like most of them are a combination of 1 and 3, right? So the fact that yours is 2 is probably pretty unique.

Yeah. Type 2 is harder to get. Uh, it's typically more expensive. So, um, it's just kind of depends on what you're going for. So these collagens have different benefits. And so you want to kind of mix and match based off what you're looking for. So if you want to support your joints and knees, uh, you know, type 2 is great. If you kind of want overall health, I would look for that, you know, type 1, type 3, um, helping skin, uh, and, uh, bone, bone health.

Well, I super appreciate your time sharing this. I want to ask before I fully let you go, this is a family business, as you mentioned, which is so admirable, but not all kids want to get into the same business as their parents. So what, what is, what motivated you to want to specifically go down this path? And in general, what, what do you find your mission is?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I don't know, I don't know if I have like a quick, snappy response on it. But I think I grew up in the health industry. I love it. Like our family dinner table, we were talking, we have doctors over, we're talking with them, or we're talking about like the latest research reports coming out. Like, it's just what I love. So I always had a love for it. And so working with my dad and the rest of my family has always been something that I've been interested in. So then when we wanted to launch this brand, when I was coming out of high school, it just— or high school and then college, it was like, you know what, I'm super interested. And so it's been a process, though, for me to find my place within everything and finding my skill sets. But yeah, I love it. I love the health and wellness industry. And, and I'm always just trying to soak up new knowledge. And then, you know, how can I help people? That's kind of the big thing there. So.

Yeah, well, I, I'm sure the thousands and thousands of people you guys have helped very much appreciate you going down this path. And I know I've really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you so much for your time and for joining us on our January 2026.

Awesome. All right. Thanks, James.

Thank you.