company of This November 17, Nutrition Herbalife will celebrate fifteen years since entering Ecuador. Although the date is still a few months away, the company kicked off the celebrations this week with a discussion to recall the beginnings and explain its future projects. Ricardo Arteaga, Operations Manager in Ecuador, recalls that the company, which is 43 years old worldwide, opened in Ecuador in November 2008, with a sales center located at 10 de Agosto and Capitán Ramón Borja, in Quito. After fifteen years, they already are eleven much more modern sales centers and offices in Ekopark, also in the capital.

He comments that when Herbalife arrived in Ecuador, only three products were on the market; instead, there is now a fully registered portfolio of 34 products (dietary supplements, food and external food products) and under the supervision of the Agency for Regulation, Control and Sanitary Supervision (Arcsa). The company also started with 1,000 direct sales distributors and now have 21,000. These are not employees of the company, but they work on the marketing of the mentioned products and generate their own funds.

During fifteen years of existence, the company managed to collect in the country 495 million dollars, of which it reached 27 million dollars in 2022 alone. By 2023, the collection will increase by 2%, says Arteaga.

The company has implemented various strategies to strengthen its offering in the market. In 2014, it formed an alliance with a local supplier to produce one of its most iconic products in the country: Herbal Aloe Concentrate, an aloe vera-based drink. This included an investment of 200 thousand dollars, intended for engineering works, sanitary permits, packaging design and tank production.

Among the future projects, Arteaga commented that the intention is to continue to grow in the number of affiliated distributors and to offer quality products and a business opportunity with the current situation in the country.

Namely, after the pandemic, an opportunity was seen for other types of business. They are no longer just products for weight control or problems related to sports or physical activity, but also others to support the treatment of mental health, heart, circulation, relaxation, stress. Currently, relaxation tea (lemon balm and chamomile) is already available in this line. A heart health product based on oats is planned to be launched on the market next year. There are other products, even with CBD, which are in the process of production, but have not yet entered Latin America, he explains.

For Herbalife, the pandemic also meant a temporary escalation in the growth of its direct sales distributors. As people were left without formal jobs, they saw this possibility of direct selling as an opportunity to make money.

Over the years, the company has also dabbled in socially responsible and environmentally friendly programs. For example, a donation of more than 580,000 dollars, which was intended for the daily nutrition of hundreds of children and girls who are in vulnerable situations in Ecuador and who are part of the Sinsoluka Foundation: Herbalife House in Ecuador. Likewise, they could plant 2,000 endemic species in the Angamarca-Ilaló community, Quito, sequestering 26,000 pounds of CO₂. It has been eliminating single-use plastics for several years to avoid contamination.