There are few industries that are more crowded than supplements — the sheer number of things that all these supplements address has been behind their rabbit-like proliferation. While many brands just put an adjective out front of whatever they’re selling, Naked Nutrition approaches the industry from a different perspective: keeping the ingredient list as short and understandable as possible.

Naked Nutrition was founded by Steve Zieminski, a University of Florida graduate and runner, in September of 2014 with the goal of changing the way the supplement industry was heading. At the time many supplements had lots of ingredients, even if they were meant to be simple, and the purpose of all those additions wasn’t always clear.  

“Supplements didn’t give you exactly what you wanted” said Zieminski. 

Zieminski saw an opportunity in the complexity that gripped the industry and launched Naked Nutrition with five single ingredient supplements and the aim of being as simple as possible: simple ingredients, simple products, and simple branding.  

This is also seen in the company’s focus on just doing supplements well rather than trying to shift to match the changing tastes of dieters.

“Diets are a bit of a fad” Zieminski said. The culture around diets means that people get in to them quickly thinking they’ll work, and only after that do the academics start doing research, “But the research finishes after people have moved on to something else.”

Simplicity isn’t just about focusing on what works, supplements. It’s a value that has stuck around at Naked Nutrition even as their range of products has expanded. In contrast to leading meal replacement drink brands with labels stuffed with fine print ingredient lists Naked Meal — Naked Nutrition’s meal replacement drink — contains only 15, fewer than many of the leading brands.

Zieminski wants to expand the products that his company offers but doesn’t see it as Naked Nutrition’s role to educate consumers in to buying something that they don’t need. This is part of the company’s simplicity; helping people who are already interested in supplements get a version of what they’re already using made with better ingredients.

In time though Naked Nutrition wants to share its unique farmer’s market approach to supplements, featuring ingredients like whey from grass fed California Cows, to a broader range of consumers. Zieminski’s thesis is that there will always be a compelling reason to buy Naked Nutrition’s products because they are using better ingredients than the top-selling companies are. 

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