Vitacost Company founder Retires

Having built his company into a $126 million direct marketer and online retailer of health supplements, Vitacost.com Inc. Founder Wayne Gorsek has retired. Gorsek set up Vitacost.com, which was originally known as Nature’s Wealth Corp , in 1994 and served as CEO till Jan 2007 when Ira P. Kerker was named the corporation’s top boss.

From Jan 2007 to July 2008, Gorsek worked as a full time advisor and aided Vitacost.com with diverse promoting, distribution, producing, client service and info technology projects. In July 2008 he was appointed chief operations designer.

Over time Kerker built Vitacost.com, No. 114 in the web Retailer Top five hundred Guide ( a PDF version of the firm’s finance and operating profile can be ordered by clicking on its name ), into a web retailing site that today carries 23,000 SKUs. That includes one or two exclusive brands such as Nutraceutical Sciences Institute, Cosmeceutical Sciences Institute, Best of All, Smart Basics and Hiker Diet. In Sep , after fifteen years as a non-public entity, Vitacost.com turned into an in public traded company. The company at first sold 4.4 million shares at $12 per share for net results of $52.8 million and employed the funding to reimburse $8.6 million in loans and about $20 million to pay for capital expenditures.

In the 3rd quarter finished Sept. 30, sales increased 31.9% to $48.4 million from $36.7 million in the previous year. Net loss was $3.8 million compared to a net loss of $143,767 in quarter 3 of 2008.