Interview with Trace Minerals Product Innovation Manager

Dr. Starkey: Hi, this is Dr. Starkey. Welcome back to Trace Your Day.

I have a really good friend and colleague on the podcast today. His name is Brandon Johnson. He is our Product Innovation Manager. I love his background and where he comes from and I’m gonna let him introduce himself and go through a little bit about that background with us and then we’re going to jump right into the topic at hand today. Welcome Brandon to the podcast today.

Brandon: Yes, Dr. Starkey. Thanks for having me on. I’m excited to continue the conversation that you and I have had on some different subjects. I’m excited to continue that here on the podcast with you.

A little background on me. I’ve spent my entire life in the dietary supplement nutritional industry. It’s kind of unique. My father is a biochemist. A brilliant, brilliant chemist. Right after he had graduated from Utah State University with his master’s in biochemistry, he had some opportunities to work for a couple of companies that maybe people out in listener land out there have heard of.

One would be Redken, I don’t know if anyone has heard of Redken Cosmetics and there’s another little company called, I’m drawing a blank. The company, they make a product called SlimFast. Who makes SlimFast Dr. Starkey?

Dr. Starkey: SlimFast… you keep introducing and I’ll find out for us.

Brandon: So the background on this is my father, when he graduated, he happened to get some jobs in cosmetics and transitioned over to dietary supplements. One of the projects he worked on early in his career was this SlimFast, if anyone has heard of the SlimFast weight loss drink people drink in the morning.

The background is just that my entire life growing up was about supplements and formulations. As a kid before I even knew what was going on these are conversations we would have at my house around the dinner table. One of the most vivid conversations I remember was, we’re having dinner, having fish, one night. I think we’re having salmon or halibut and my dad turned to me and said: “Do you feel smarter?”

Dr. Starkey: How old are you at this point?

Brandon: I’m 43 now.

Dr. Starkey: No, no, no, when this conversation took place.

Brandon: Oh yeah, I’m like 10.

Dr. Starkey: Ok.

Brandon: I’m like 10 when this happened. 10 or 12.“Do you feel smarter?” and I look at him and I’m like “Dad, what do you mean do I feel smarter? I just want to go out and play.” He’s like, “Well, we’re eating a fatty fish, a fish that has high amounts of omega fatty acids, high in DHA.DHA is good for brain development so do you feel like you’re getting smarter?” So, these are conversations that were normal in my childhood, right?

Dr. Starkey: Right. Not baseball, not basketball, not football, but are you feeling smarter because of what you’re eating? We need to address that more on an upcoming podcast, whet would be considered normal at the dinner table, right?

Brandon: Yeah, we gotta cover all that stuff. Just so you know that background, it’s part of my normal life. Just my dad, he was an entrepreneur and a brilliant formulator throughout his career, and I worked with him for about 20 years developing different companies. So I learned the formulation side of supplements, nutrition, chemistry, hands on with him. Great stuff.

I started going to school just like a lot of us, right? I think Dr. Starkey can relate to this. We kind of don’t know what we do so we kind of bounce a little bit. I started going to school and I fell in love with nutritional science and then exercise science and so the whole time I’m working with my dad learning formulations, I’m also going to school, I’m learning nutrition taking so many nutritional classes getting into exercise science. I ended up graduating with my undergraduate degree in nutrition and exercise science, then I went on to get a master's degree in sports performance conditioning.

I got heavily involved in the bodybuilding world. Then to fitness coaching, competition coaching, just really got involved in that world of, as the application of “How do we optimize performance, how do we optimize health, how do we optimize people’s lifestyles?”

Then the whole time I’m doing that I’m also continuing to work doing formulations, doing nutritional research on different things. That spanned basically from my early 20’s up until now joining you on the podcast. That kind of covers the highlights so people know a little bit about where I came from and my background.

Dr. Starkey: I think so and going forward we start going into nutrients now they’ll understand where Brandon comes from and how you probably became more like your dad then you ever thought, right?

Brandon: Isn’t that interesting sometimes that we end up like that? And it’s interesting, now being a part of the Trace team and being here with you. I’ve kind of come full circle in life.

Dr. Starkey: Right. We worked with your dad for years and now to have you, of course, it makes perfect sense, right? We’ve had these conversations and I believe going forward that you and I are going to make a splash on this podcast when it comes to your personality and your insight and I look forward to that because what you’re passionate about or when you become extremely passionate that’s when we need to turn on the podcast.

Right now, what I’d love to do, you know we’ve had these conversations, Brandon, with what we’ve been through now the last 2 years, the amount of stress that we’ve been under, of course the products that are becoming more and more, elements that have come to the forefront, I just want to go back to ConcenTrace of course being our flagship product and what’s kept us in business for the past 50 years.

I love, Brandon, how you as a formulator describe the ConcenTrace when you’re putting a formula together. If you would, share just a little bit of what it means to you in dealing with what I believe of course is perfection in a bottle but when it comes to formulating with it how you describe the ConcenTrace.

Brandon: Yeah. I think to start this conversation, first I’m sure people you talk to listening understand that our body is this immensely complicated bioelectrical chemical system that we barely understand some of the things that go on. But we know that the body is basically an electrical system. That we have these electrical exchanges going on in our body all the time and we have an ion exchange and minerals are ionic, so we go to ConcenTrace, right?

ConcenTrace is that ionic mineral compound, and ionic minerals are playing a part in hundreds of thousands - if not millions – of cellular function interactivity in the body.

So when we look at it from a formulation standpoint. When I’m trying to formulate a product for somebody, we think about what are the needs that the people have? Where are they deficient? What can we do to help them optimize their health, their well-being, their performance, to feel the best, to be their best?

So we try to create these formulas, we have such great formulas here at Trace, to try and cover these things that people need. When we look at ConcenTrace, the cool thing about ConcenTrace is that I can’t go into a lab and recreate ConcenTrace, right? I’m not that smart, right? I can’t do it. I can’t put together the combination of minerals and elements in the way they are in ConcenTrace and have it be ionic and have them be what we really like to call cell optimizer.

Dr. Starkey: Right.

Brandon: You know a functional optimizer. They’re optimizing cellular function. All these interactions, these pathways, enzymatic interactions, they require mineral, they require ionic potential in our bodies. Magnesium, we’ll not dive too far down that hole

Dr. Starkey: Sure. Sure.

Brandon: We just think about can I create ConcenTrace in a lab? No I can’t. Can I go get 72+ elements, minerals in the amounts and ratios that ConcenTrace is by nature, by the way God created it? I can’t do that.

Dr. Starkey: Right. And of course, we don’t want you to feel bad about yourself, but I don’t know of any, I don’t care what field you’re in or what background you have or whether you’re a, you know, again, your dad was brilliant as a biochemist but he himself, again that’s why he used this product for years and years because he understood exactly what you just described. And there’s nobody on the planet in any field that can do what you just explained.

Brandon: Yeah. As smart as we are we’re still learning so much about biological systems. What I figure is really interesting about ConcenTrace is we’re here in the Rocky Mountains and we have these beautiful mountains that are rich in minerals and rich in life. The Rocky Mountains are teaming with biological life. This water as it filters through the beautiful mountains and comes down and ends up here in the Great Salt Lake and we have the evaporation system.

So, we have this mineral water essentially rich in life. It’s carrying all this potential. The water has picked up these ions and minerals that come down out of the mountain and ends up in the Great Salt Lake and then we harvest it in our harvesting pods.

It’s cool cause it’s carried to the things that create an abundance of life and we’ve been able to harvest that and create a process with it that is, we don’t adulterate it. These ionic minerals that have the potential to optimize our body and plan an action in millions of cellular interactions in the body. That’s why I like to use ConcenTrace. Because it does things that I can’t do putting in other ingredients. I can’t get you 72+ minerals and put them together because I’m not that smart.

Dr. Starkey: Right.

Brandon: Honestly, it’s not industry feasible to do that, right?

Dr. Starkey: Right.

Brandon: If we look…

Dr. Starkey: Even if we could like you said, even if we could put this together masterfully, it would be astronomically expensive that no one could afford it anyway.

Brandon: Yeah. No one could afford it anyway. To do that and to do the chemical processes and the extracts it just wouldn’t be feasible.

Dr. Starkey: Right.

Brandon: Again, if I look at a formulation, how do I formulate this for people that’s going to improve biological cellular function. ConcenTrace is such a key ingredient to that because it, again, it goes back to nature. We still can’t beat nature as far as how smart we are.

And if we look at how deficient we’ve become in minerals through reverse osmosis water, people don’t get out as much as we used to and so now our bodies are lacking. ConcenTrace is cool because it’s trace amounts. You only need trace amounts of these things because we don’t get those like we did 100 years ago. These are conversations you and I have had, Dr. Starkey. Going back 100 years ago, 200 years ago, our day-to-day lives were so much different. We don’t have that anymore. We’re not out in the earth like we use to be doing things.

Dr. Starkey: We’re not grounding ourselves daily, you’re right.

Brandon: Yeah, so our bodies start to lack this connectivity, so we operate slower and slower and slower, right?

Dr. Starkey: Right.

Brandon: Cellular repair is slower. Conductivity, connections, signals, from one cell to the next are becoming slower and degraded.

Dr. Starkey: Right.

Brandon: So, it’s something like we’re back on dial-up internet, right? Once we become deficient in these minerals we’re going back to dial-up. ConcenTrace helps us to provide an optimal environment that, and again it’s an ingredient that I can’t go formulate that ingredient. I can’t go buy that from a chemical supply company because they can’t make it or if they could reverse engineer it say, it would be so cost prohibitive to try to sell that on the market.

Dr. Starkey; Right

Brandon: So, to come back to a formulation ingredient, it’s quite remarkable to use an ingredient that nature created, that has this potential cellular optimization.

Dr. Starkey: Right. I think that the neat thing that we’ve learned how to do with this product, and that’s truly our niche, that’s what’s kept us in business, that niche that none of these other companies have and I love that you’re capable of putting it into something that they want which might be a multi, it might be a stress product. Whatever that interest is, by putting these minerals in conjunction with your formulation gives them something so much more.

I love when our consumers call up and say, “This is the best multivitamin I’ve taken.” And sometimes I want to scream. We’ve been taking multivitamins for decades right? But what I love to do is bring them back to the basics and help them understand why this product is helping them feel the way they do. And it always comes back to the basics of the ConcenTrace. That’s a cool thing that you have in your possession. Or we have in our possession.

Brandon: Yeah. We have different products. We’re making multivitamins, and electrolyte, these different things

Dr. Starkey: Immune Supports.

Brandon: Yeah. So some of the ingredients and the players that we put in these products are awesome in and of themselves. But when we can add ConcenTrace to it, we’re unlocking cellular potential for some of these other players, these other ingredients, to do their job.

Dr. Starkey: Right. It helps them activate, regulate, and assimilate. We talk about those 3 key words quite a bit don’t we?

Brandon: Yeah. I love that, activate, regulate, and assimilate. And again if I have a cell that, for lack of a better word, is asleep, or if I have a connection in my body that’s not running very well, I can be pumping in high levels of a vitamin or an herbal support product or whatever and I’m not going to get the full benefit of it because I have cells that are asleep and I have cells that can’t talk to each other or I don’t have the enzymatic activity to couple and uncouple these different compounds and get them where they need to go.

ConcenTrace to me helps bridge the gap for a lot of these things, these interactions, for other supplements, for other products, let alone what it can do by itself. But as a formulator putting it in conjunction with other ingredients, immunity, hydration, performance, and I think that’s another great conversation we can have, is the performance side.

Dr. Starkey: Absolutely. When it comes to the basics, I hope that our listeners of this podcast understand, yes, we’re excited about this, we’ve always been excited and we hope you become excited with us as to what potential, whether you take this by itself, we make it available in so many different delivery systems whether it be the liquid, the tablet, the capsule, of course we have a flavored liquid form for those that have sensitive taste buds or don’t want to learn how to disguise it, right?

Or, as I’ve sat and listened to you Brandon, these formulas that are being requested or of course we know of consumer interest in. I hope that when you look at that logo of Trace Minerals you understand now a little bit better of why these products and formulations are different.

Brandon: Yeah, and that’s exactly it Dr. Starkey. They’re different by design. Because we’re trying to create an environment for people’s bodies to function at a better level so they feel better, they perform better, they heal faster and all of that’s related to your cells being able to communicate with each other to remove waste byproduct and to heal and repair.

Dr. Starkey: Yup.

Brandon: You look at human nutrition, and again what are we trying to do? We’re trying to heal and repair our bodies better, right? Ultimately, whether we’re talking about immunity, we’re talking about sports performance, electrolyte performance, those things. What’s our goal? To function processing faster and to heal.

Dr. Starkey: You know, we’re such a reactive society, right Brandon? It’s not until we’re in pain or in a crisis that we start asking the right questions. To me that’s one of the key pieces to what you do when formulating. Like you said, that’s our ultimate goal to create that energy. Or better energy and communication in the body.

Isn’t it fascinating how we want that magic bullet, we want that quick acting, fast resolve but I will say this and I think we’ve had this discussion that it’s not going to happen unless we maintain consistency with a product in helping the body recover. That’s another aspect in another topic that we can have on another podcast. Any other thoughts Brandon?

Brandon: Yeah. You kind of sparked something in me there with that last comment you shared and that would be a great note to end on. Living life, we’re under stress. Our lives are stressful. Healthy stress and unhealthy stress. The body’s under stress. The cells are under stress. We know we’re going to get sick. We know we’re going to get injured. Even if you’re healthy and you’re working out.

So that background that I come from in the fitness field, we’re doing tremendous amounts of oxidated damage, cellular damage to the body from working out. All of us are going to be subject to injuries and illnesses. One of the things we try to do, and again the other products we create, ConcenTrace in and of itself, the stronger the foundational level of health can be. The more fortified my body can be. When those things are inevitably going to happen, whether it’s an illness…

Dr. Starkey: It’s called life, right?

Brandon: It’s called life, and we’ve just gone through the last 2 years of seeing our society affected by a major illness that has affected a lot of people. Regardless of that, we’re frail, I guess. And our goal is to try and compensate for frailty through good health through nutrition.

When we can supplement the right way with the right things, there’s a foundation when injuries, illnesses, sickness, or just the grind daily wear and tear, our bodies can be better equipped to handle it.

That the way I look at it. I think that’s kind of where you were going with that thought is we can give people a foundation of health, a foundation to try and optimize their body. That’s the difference between being sore for 2, 3, or 4 days from a really hard workout and recovering in one day. There’s a difference between getting sick and being wiped out for 3 weeks vs getting sick and your body kicking it in 3 days.  

Dr. Starkey: Right. I think that one that we hear a lot of, Brandon, and of course those night cramps, a lot of our aging population is suffering from right now. Like you just said, instead of having a lingering muscle pain for 3 or 4 days we hope that you’ll put our money where our mouth is and try some of these products.

We have a product by the way that’s called No! Muscle Cramps and those are just a part of what we’re trying to do to help that recovery and make, like you said, life more enjoyable.

If you get a chance, we hope we’ve intrigued you enough that you can turn to our website and TraceMinerals.com. Go to the product section and look up what we have available and if you have any questions, please reach out, whether it be an email or a text. Whatever you’d like to do. Brandon and I, and other members of our team would love to address some of those questions for you.

Brandon: Absolutely. Dr. Starkey, thanks so much for letting me share a little bit about my background and the thought process that I go through when I’m developing formulas and trying to be innovative with the products we create. Truly that’s our goal: to help people, to be healthier, to feel better. That’s what we’re truly passionate about.

Dr. Starkey: Absolutely. I’ll end it this way today. That’s why we have that full money refund guarantee and that is, “Feel the Difference or your money back” no questions asked. We’re that confident in these products that we have available at Trace Minerals to do so.

Brandon, thank you again for being a part of this podcast. I look forward to our upcoming ventures together, especially when we dive into some of these ingredients that intrigue you or get you excited and I look forward to being a part of that and bringing you on when you find a new piece of information or a new product that we’re releasing.

And I hope that you as far as listening to this podcast that you’ll benefit from it and it helps aid and support as we’ve talked about and give you that ability to live strong, to have that energy that we’re all designed to have, and until next week, stay healthy, be well, and best of health.

Thanks for listening in. If you have any topics you want covered let us know on our Instagram page @tracemineralsresearch. We’ll see you back here next week on Trace Your Day.