Joe: On this episode of the “CPG & CBD University Podcast,” we’re joined by America’s personal trainer, Tony Little as we launch Forever Well Nutrition. The next generation of health and wellness products is here. This is the “CPG & CBD University Podcast,” and it starts right now.
I’m Joe Agostinelli, host of the “CPG & CBD University Podcast.” If you’re a returning listener, welcome back to our podcast. And if you are a new listener, we are glad you found us on your podcast platform of choice. Wherever you get your podcast hit that subscribe button and you can always catch full video episodes on our YouTube channel and lots of video extras for this episode. That is because I welcome in-studio America’s personal trainer, Tony Little, along with Global Widget co-founder Kevin Collins. Welcome both of you in-studio, always exciting to launch a new brand.
Tony: Great to be here.
Kevin: Yeah, thanks for having us, Joe.
Joe: And as I mentioned, lots of new brands, Forever Well Nutrition. And to first, Kevin, how did this partnership come about?
Kevin: Yeah, so obviously gummies is a huge market right now. And what actually happened is we were having a lot of sponsors and spokespeople and celebrities come through the building, looking to do a brand with us. And I just never really felt comfortable with anyone because I wanted to partner with someone, A, who built their career on health and wellness, but, B, wanted to be involved, not just a sponsor or a face of the brand.
So a little bit of luck I guess, we ran into Tony. He actually lives 20 minutes from the facility, which is huge benefit to us. And, you know, with Tony, he’s built his whole career on health, wellness, fitness, selling products. And his biggest thing is working with the manufacturer, right? And there are no gummy companies that are direct from the manufacturer. So that was one of the biggest pulls for him.
For me, obviously, he checks all the boxes. He’s built his career on health and wellness, he sells products, and he wants to be involved. And that’s what I was looking for. So we literally have Tony in the office on a weekly basis. He’s in here helping me design the packaging, he’s in here working on trying the samples, making sure they taste right, making sure they chew properly. So I was looking for more of a partner than really just a spokesperson. And luckily, I think I found it here in Tony. So, you know, we’re excited.
Tony: I was lucky. I was the one lucky. All right.
Kevin: We were excited about that.
Tony: I was the one lucky.
Kevin: And obviously, we got Tony Little here, so…
Joe: Yeah. Welcome in-studio.
Tony: I’m lucky. I’m the one lucky, I am. You know, I’m fortunate, you know, in the way, I never endorse something that I don’t love, and I don’t endorse something that I wasn’t involved in the development of. And that was so crucial when I came here and met with Kevin, and we talked about the company and what they’re doing. And if anyone out there could ever see this place, you would understand you’re buying from the number one gummy manufacturer in the world, okay?
You got 400 employees. You’ve got trucks everywhere. I mean, I couldn’t believe that this place was, like, 20 miles from my house. It was, like, “Thank you, God,” right? It was, it was, like, unbelievable. And coming in and being able to deal with a company that has experts in every division. So you’re secured with knowing, you know, that the gummies are great for you, there’s no problems, they’re developed with the idea of being assimilated quicker than other gummies. They have so much technology.
And so that was amazing to me. So to get into this new thing right here with all these gummies was just so unbelievable. So unbelievable, and so exciting. And I do want people to know I’m excited because I’m working with the manufacturer, okay, the manufacturer.
Joe: And I know he keeps bringing that up because Tony’s only ever worked with the manufacturer on all his products. So, and you mentioned to me that you had a ton of companies coming to you to do gummies and do different things, but it was always a third party.
Tony: Yeah. They were all…they were private labels. They were all, like, “Well, we’ve got this line.” And, but they were all getting a label slapped on something that I couldn’t find any experts. I couldn’t find any company that did it. And that’s not what I wanna put down my mouth and into my body. I wanna deal with the manufacturer who’s got all the experts, and that’s what your company is.
Kevin: Makes sense. And, yeah, I think, you know, one thing with me and the company is we’re all in-house, right? And every single person, every 400 employees we have works in-house. So eight formulators, five chemists, three scientists. I mean, experts on the machines.
I mean, everything is in the building, and it’s a big plus for us because we’re really big on collaboration, too. And I wanna be able to bring Tony in and we all get together and we get to talk about the product and make changes. And really like he’s alluded to, is Tony endorses products he loves, that he knows are high quality and that he knows works. And it took us 12 months, but we’re here now with a great product that tastes well and that we know that works.
Joe: Tony, why gummies?
Tony: You know what, because I hate pills. I hate pills. I think everybody hates pills, right? And I’ve taken a lot of vitamins. I mean, I used to have, like, 20 bottles of vitamins, “Woop, woop.” You know, like, hoping it goes down, you know? And then it got worse a little bit, because I’m 65 years young now, right? And I’m taking pills for, you know, different reasons as you get older and things like that, and it gets about right here and it starts to stick, and it starts to stick. And I start to get a little worried, and I’m drinking all this stuff to get it down.
Gummies are the greatest invention ever, ever done to the vitamin industry because you chew them, they dissolve, they go deliver right to the places you wanna go. And I just don’t believe in pills anymore. Gummies is the only way to go.
Kevin: And it tastes good, right?
Tony: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pills don’t have any taste except for, “Argh, that was horrible. Whoa.”
Kevin: And what we’re trying to do is create healthy habits, right? And when you have things like pills and capsules that people don’t like taking, they’re not creating a healthy habit, they’re not taking their vitamins. So one of our biggest focuses that Tony made sure of is we need to have the best-tasting gummies. In order to create a healthy habit, people have to want to take the product, right? So what we’ve done is created the best-tasting product that we can, but we’re creating that healthy habit of vitamins.
Tony: You know, the one thing I found in your gummies right away was I quick dissolve. You know what I’m saying? I had other gummies where I chew and I chew, and I chew chewing and I was, like, “Is this ever gonna dissolve or is this ever gonna go down?” And yours is just, like, almost very, very quickly.
Kevin: And the reason why I think Joe is probably gonna ask this later is we use pectin-based gummies, right? And some of the biggest manufacturers on the market still use gelatin. Well, gelatin’s very chewy. It’s almost like bubble gum. It’s not easy to chew. It’s not fun to chew. It doesn’t taste good. You end up sitting there forever. So the reason a lot of companies don’t all use pectin, it’s more expensive, right? Well, we’re the manufacturer. So I don’t care about spending a couple more dollars to make a better product.
Tony: And the consumer doesn’t mind spending a couple more dollars for internal products going in your body. You know, it’s something that you want to work, something that you, you know, you don’t wanna be taking fake stuff. You don’t wanna be taking stuff that is never gonna be assimilated and you’re spending all the money. Again, when you deal with a manufacturer that’s been around for a long time and it has all these experts, you can be sure you’re getting the right product as an ingestible.
Kevin: Yeah. And another reason we use the pectin is it’s vegan-friendly, right? And so many people in the market right now, they don’t want beef products. And there are a lot of people going vegan, vegetarian. And that was another main reason we wanted to use the pectin-based gummies.
Joe: And just two quick points. First, our previous episode to this with two of our formulators that Kevin had talked about that we have here on staff, we break down gelatin and pectin in gummy. So I invite you to tune into that episode, is the previous episode to this and you could find it in podcast stores. But a point I wanted to go back to what Tony mentioned, Kevin, was that direct to the…direct from the manufacturer.
Kevin: Yeah. So let me speak on that for a minute. So what’s odd in this industry is I don’t even know of many other brands out there that are direct from the manufacturer. Almost every gummy brand on the market is a marketing company that buys their product from a manufacturer, but they’re missing that bridge in between. So you have one guy that’s focused on making a product, another guy that’s focused on just marketing and selling, but they’re not working together. And the one pull that he mentioned of him to coming to us, we are direct from manufacturers.
So I have a full-service marketing team, like I mentioned, formulators, chemists. So everything we do, we do in-house, we manage our own logistics. We got a 75,000-square-foot facility that houses all our distribution, inventory, and logistics. And it makes it easy for us to collaborate, make sure the product is the highest quality it can be, ship the product on time.
And again, with the way the world is, supply chain is getting very shaky let’s call it, right? And with us being able to control everything from the raw ingredients to the actual production, we’re able to maneuver around these supply chain issues a little bit easier than these other companies.
And I think it’s a big benefit because we get to sell, and I know we keep repeating it, but we sell direct to the customer. There’s no hands in between, full transparency. We put videos on all of our websites, so you could see the actual machinery. You could actually see some of the employees making gummies. So it’s a very good visual and it should make the end consumer feel very good and confident about buying the product, right?
Tony: You know, if you’re gonna ingest something, you want real results, okay? You don’t want fake and you don’t want issues or problems, or anything like that. I mean, really deciding to take a vitamin or to take any type of pill is a decision for yourself, but you want the results that you took it for. And that’s what you’re gonna get by dealing with the manufacturer, not somebody who’s taking something that they don’t know anything about and slapping however you want. I’m totally against that, and that’s why I’m so fortunate to be with Global Widget and you guys.
Kevin: Yeah. I appreciate that.
Joe: And we talked a little bit about the gummies and pectin base and being vegan-friendly, but, too, different from other companies, multiple active ingredients. And we have some of the samples here in-studio, so you can tune into our YouTube channel to see the extras, but talk a little bit about how it stands out.
Kevin: So all of our products are designed to help specific niches, right? So right here, we have our top five products. We have a energy product that has apple cider vinegar with B12, obviously, it’s for energy, right?
Tony: I love it.
Kevin: We have a focused product. We have an immunity product with elderberry, echinacea, and zinc. We have a sleep product. All the products serve a very unique, different purpose. So what’s great is a single customer really can buy all of these products because they’re targeted towards different things, right? One’s energy, one’s for sleeping.
And to touch on what you said, we don’t just go the easy route of, “Let’s make an apple cider vinegar government, right, with one ingredient.” All of our products are multi-active ingredients, multifunctional ingredients, and they are complex formulas that have been tested and thought through for months and months from chemists, scientists to perform the best for your body and give you those best results and benefits. And what he’s so big on is making sure the end product delivers the proper results. And that’s what we’re here to do.
Joe: Yeah. And two things, Tony, I know you wanna talk about is, first of all, the amount of gummies that are in each bottle is not what people are used to? I mean, I usually see 30, 60, but these are 70 count, and then the packaging detail is exactly what’s in those gummies.
Tony: Yeah. Well, I think it was amazing when dealing with Kevin here and we were talking about it and he really was the person who came up. And again, this goes back to dealing with the manufacturer. He was able to say, “As a manufacturer, we wanna give the consumer the most amount for their buck. So we’re gonna add 10 more gummies.” Nobody ever does that. You couldn’t do that privately. Well, you couldn’t do that in most places.
He’s a large manufacturer. He wants people to understand the quality of their products and he’s willing to say, “Hey, you’re gonna get more gummies with every bottle you buy when you buy a Forever Well product. And I think that’s amazing because right now in this world, everybody’s cutting back on quantities not making more. So he believes in his business and when he believes in it, I believe in it.
Kevin: Yeah. And tell him, so the real reason though, Tony, is it’s great that we’re the manufacturer, but what happened is I kept giving Tony samples. And he would call me and say, “Hey, my kids, my fiancé…everyone’s taking my gummies,” because it’s almost like a candy. They taste so good. So he was, like, “We gotta do something about that because what happens on day 25, the customer goes in a bottle and they don’t have their month-long regimen.”
Joe: Exactly.
Kevin: So what I said is, “Hey, let’s include 10 extra gummies in every bottle, that way the consumer could give some to friends. And if their wife happens to steal some of them, they still have their monthly daily regimen of gummies.” So it was really a mix of being the manufacturer. And then Tony saying, “Hey, what are we gonna do about people taking my gummies, and then at the end of the month, I don’t have enough, right?”
Joe: Well, the kids love them. You know, the kids love them. I have two 12-year-olds and they love them.
Kevin: Yeah. And that goes into why gummies as a delivery method is growing so much, right? You’re always gonna have trends within ingredients. Gummies is not a trend. Gummies is a way to take vitamins, take medicinal ingredients. And like he just said, 12-year-olds love them, right? Well, 12-year-olds, don’t love to swallow vitamin pills, but they’ll eat gum gummies.
Tony: But there’s so many byproducts in pills, right? There’s so many fillers in pills. And everybody pretty much knows that now. So gummies is ruling the world right now because it doesn’t matter your age. Like you said, you chew it, it dissolves, it assimilates and it does what you’re looking for in a vitamin product. So it’s a huge, huge industry win.
Kevin: Yeah. For sure.
Joe: What are you guys most excited…Kevin, I’ll ask you first as we wrap up here…about the launch of Forever Well in the future?
Kevin: Yeah. I’d say what I’m most excited about is finally right after 12 months of developing this product, we get to finally try to sell it, right? And we’re now currently talking to two or three of the biggest retailers in the country. We hope to be in these in Q1. And then what we’re most excited about is getting Tony on TV, a specialty. And we’re looking at in the beginning of Q1, we’re gonna be launching up in Canada.
And then we’re gonna start looking…I think it’ll be Q2 that we started getting on TV in the United States. We’re excited about that, too, but we are talking to some of the biggest retailers so customers could be keen to start seeing it in their local grocery stores and retailers, and things like that. Obviously, we have a big e-commerce presence, social media. So, you know, we have our Instagram and our Facebook. Obviously, customers can visit our e-commerce site to purchase a product.
We’re gonna be doing a lot of giveaways in the beginning, so we have a bunch of different giveaways planned for the launch of the brand. And, yeah, we’re just excited after 12 months of development that we got a product in hand and now we can go sell it and reap the benefits of that.
Joe: And you can find the links…and I will get to you Tony in just a minute about what you’re most excited about in the future…but you can find the links to Forever Well’s website, that’s http://www.bforeverwell.com along with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube links to our social media networks are in the description of this podcast episode. So, Tony, what are you most excited about the future with Forever Well Nutrition?
Tony: Quality, quality, efficacy, people loving the product, people seeing the results with the product. I mean, all the benefits that a quality supplement like this is gonna give people is the most important thing. When you ingest something, you wanna know it works, all right, and that’s what these do. Forever Well is quality and it delivers, and that’s why I’m part of it.
Kevin: Yeah. Really thank you for being part of this. It’s exciting.
Joe: Yeah. We are excited to have you a part of this, and we look forward to doing more podcasts as more products are made available to customers nationwide. And I should mention that in addition to the website and social media, also check out Amazon for a full line of the Forever Well Nutrition products and the Forever Well Nutrition store right on Amazon.
Kevin: Yep. That’s right. Yeah, we launched on Amazon, I would say two weeks ago. So you can find the products on Amazon and our own e-commerce site. And then, like I said, probably be towards the end of the year, you’ll start seeing us pop up in numerous different retailers and grocery stores around the country.
Joe: Global widget co-founder Kevin Collins and America’s personal trainer, Tony Little, my guests on this episode of the “CPG & CBD University Podcast.” That was a lot of fun, a lot of great information. Thanks, guys.
Kevin: Thank you, Joe.
Tony: Thank you.
Kevin: Appreciate it.
Joe: We can do it. Here it goes. And again, just a reminder, follow Forever Well Nutrition, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube links in the description of this podcast, and for all the products visit www.beforeverwell.com. That’s www.beforeverwell.com. I’m Joe Agostinelli, host of the “CPG& CBD University Podcast”. Hit that subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. Thank you for tuning in.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. CBD products are unintended to treat you or prevent any disease or condition. Always consult your personal physician about CPG and using CBD products. CBD should never be used by anyone under the age of 18. This podcast had not intended to provide legal advice regarding the legal status of CPG and CBD products.
