Own recipes - no off-the-shelf products

We believe our products should be as individual as our customers. It is therefore a constant challenge for our team of nutritionists to find the optimal combinations and dosages of different raw materials.

We want our products to be characterised by special properties and unique characteristics, both in terms of composition and content.

Our Green Tea Extract is a good example of this. Whilst some suppliers offer only a leaf extract without any indication of the important or active ingredients, our raw material contains a guaranteed amount of polyphenols. Since these substances alone are insufficiently bioavailable for the body, we also add vitamin C from acerola cherry extract to our product, which leads to an improved effect and absorption of the green tea.

Another example are our vitamin B12 supplements. Crucial for the quality of a B12 product is what type of vitamin B12 it is: the biologically active form ‘methylcobalamin’ or the still inactive storage forms ‘hydroxycobalamin’ and ‘cyanocobalamin’, which must first be converted into the active forms in the body. In addition, vitamins B12, B6 and B9 (also known as folic acid) work very closely together in the body. For this reason, it makes sense to not only make a pure vitamin B12 preparation, but a sensibly combined complex that contains vitamin B12, vitamin B6 and folic acid (vitamin B9).

Dosage made to measure

The correct dosage of dietary supplements is essential to achieve the intended and desired effect. Taking under the recommended amount is usually ineffective, whilst an overdose can sometimes lead to serious health risks. Water-soluble vitamins (vitamin C and all B vitamins) are less problematic in this respect; too much is simply excreted by the body. Vitamin B12, however, is an exception as it can accumulate in the liver. The situation is different with fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) which are stored in the body and can form a harmful surplus in the event of an overdose, leading to complications.

This is why we pay very close attention to optimal dosages and only combine different ingredients when it really makes sense. The specifications of institutions such as The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), The Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) and The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) are what we adhere to. As we do not only sell our products within Germany, the respective national laws of our sales countries also apply to us, whereby in our experience the most and strictest regulations prevail in Germany. A substance that has no restriction in Italy or France is often already considered a medicinal product in Germany and is subject to separate regulations.

We work together with certified dietary supplement experts from our respective sales countries to have the important product information on our labels officially checked before they are released and to determine the respective legal status. If necessary, we also register our products with the responsible authorities.

Longterm partnerships

When it comes to raw material procurement and production, we work exclusively with selected partners whom we have come to know closely and mostly personally over the years and whom we trust. We stick to these long-standing partnerships, even if we could buy at much lower prices from some other suppliers. In our experience, quality has a lot to do with intensive, constantly growing cooperation, which is only possible in long-term partnerships.

We would like to highlight one of our long-term partnerships at this point. For several years now, we have been working on selected production steps with the "Delphin-Werkstätten" for people with disabilities, who are direct neighbours at our site in Berlin. This cooperation works very successfully for both sides and has been a positive learning process for all involved. Markus Kliem, the manager of the Delphin workshops in Berlin-Pankow, says: "Since the work for Vegavero corresponds to different levels of difficulty, we can involve all our employees in the production process. In addition, the long-term cooperation also gives us the opportunity to practise and consolidate individual work steps over a longer period of time. Due to the physical proximity, our employees are in constant and personal contact with the colleagues of the Vegavero team and can thus constantly develop further in terms of social skills. In short: this cooperation is "inclusion in action".

Sustainability - more than a slogan

For us, sustainability is not a slogan, but an integral part of our self-image, which presents us with the great challenge of balancing economic and ecological goals. Of course, we have to think economically, because this is the only way we can buy high-quality raw materials at fair prices, offer products at affordable prices and pay fair salaries. However, our ecological conscience is just as important to us.

• That's why our products are completely vegan, without any animal ingredients.
• We purchase in such a way that unnecessary transport routes and thus loads for the environment are avoided if possible and we produce our capsules and tablets in Germany.
• For our bottles, labels and cardboard boxes, we rely on partners who produce in Germany or neighbouring countries.
• We found our "home" in the Econoparks in Berlin-Pankow. On the roofs of this industrial park is the largest collection of solar panels in Berlin with an area of approximately 43,000 m², producing around 5.8 million kilowatts of electricity annually, which saves around 5,000 tons of CO² annually.
• We ship our parcels climate-neutrally with DHL, paying the corresponding surcharges for the DHL-affiliated environmental protection program "GoGreen", which finances projects in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energies and reforestation.

If you take sustainability seriously as a guiding principle, as we do, it can't just be about making bigger corporate decisions. Sustainability has to be implemented in the day-to-day running of a company, down to the smallest details. That’s why we don't use company cars and pay the monthly tickets for public transport for all our employees; we buy our green electricity from Greenpeace Energy, avoid unnecessary waste of paper, use environmentally friendly envelopes, even with the cleaning materials for our office; we always pay attention to ingredients and biodegradability.

Packaging - the search for the holy grail!

We currently use dark green PET containers for our products. With this type of packaging, not only can conventional ‘blister packaging’ be avoided, but our tablets and capsules are also easy to access, easy to store and, due to the dark green colour, permanently protected from light.

Our PET containers have special ‘wraparound labels’, an innovation developed by us, one which we are particularly proud of. These labels make package inserts and other outer packaging superfluous and, above all, all the detailed information on our products is right where it belongs, i.e. always at hand, complete and easy to read, directly on the bottle.

We do not believe in deceptive packaging and therefore take great care to use the smallest possible packaging sizes. We also participate in the ‘dual system’, a scheme in which we bear all costs for the disposal of packaging we put on the market within the framework of our packaging licensing.

Of course, in contrast to glass packaging, the use of PET packaging raises the question of environmental compatibility and sustainability. There is no simple answer to this question. What speaks against the use of glass packaging is that the production itself requires a significantly higher energy input due to the high temperatures in the manufacturing process. In addition, glass is considerably heavier than comparable plastic packaging and so is also negative in terms of its energy balance. Apart from the fact that the raw material used, sand, is just as finite as crude oil in plastic production, our tests with glass packaging resulted in an extremely high breakage rate, which is neither sustainable nor makes our customers happy. From our point of view, glass packaging is only superior to plastic packaging if it can be reused, for which we have not yet found a satisfactory solution.

For us, the important issue of packaging is far from over. We are currently working with our partners on new ideas such as bottles made from biodegradable material.