One man says he has the answer to making sure you get the all the daily vitamin intake you need without ever taking a pill again.
Ray Doustdar is the CEO and founder of Buiced Inc., which produces a liquid multi-vitamin which he claims gives your body 100 percent daily value of vitamins from in a single 1-ounce dosage.
"I'm just trying to help people get their vitamins on a daily basis," said the founder.
Doustdar had just 60 seconds to Power Pitch his big idea to a panel of experts with Dr. David Katz, founding director at Yale University's Prevention Research Center; Richard Demb, CEO of Abe's Market; and Nikhil Kalghatgi, a partner at Vast Ventures.
Will his pitch be "Buiced" enough to get our panelists going? Click the video above to find out.
A hard pill to swallow
In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more of half of U.S. adults use dietary supplements--including multivitamins, minerals and herbs.
Doustdar was one of these multivitamin takers, but said he never enjoyed swallowing those "horse pills."
"I would get nauseated each and every time that I would take pill form vitamins," he said.
However, according to the University of Rochester Medical Center, most Americans do not get enough vitamins and minerals in their daily diet. In fact, the Physician's Desk Reference reports that only 10 to 20 percent of the nutrients in pill vitamins are absorbed into the human body, but absorption of liquid vitamins is about 98 percent. According to this research, liquid vitamins can be up to 10 times more effective than nutritional supplements in pill form.
Doustdar told CNBC he hired top scientists to help him form his liquid Buiced.
Buiced breakdown
Buiced liquid multivitamin is offered in a citrus lemon flavor and looks like carrot juice. The founder suggests adding Buiced to vegetable juices or smoothies, or taking it straight as a shot.
The product is manufactured in the U.S. and is available in two sizes: a 30-ounce bottle, which retails at $30 and as Buiced "mini's" priced at $25 for a total of 18 bottles.
Doustdar said each mini bottle contains one full day's worth of vitamins.
The bulk of Buiced's business is through Buiced.com, and on Amazon (AMZN). Buiced is also available in Natural Food Retailers in the Los Angeles area, and more than a dozen Pilates, yoga and other fitness studios.
All of our panelists got to taste test the Buiced vitamin supplement. "I won't be swapping out a good Bordeaux or a nice sauvignon blanc for this stuff anytime," Dr. Katz admitted. Panelist Kalghatgi's palate wasn't too partial to Buiced, either.
"I couldn't get over the taste. [Buiced] was really, really hard to get down," said Kalghatgi.
Doustdar told the panelists he planned on expanding more Buiced flavors in the future.
But Dr. Katz said he liked that the product is GMO free, caffeine free and had very little added sugar. He asked Doustdar for evidence of Buiced's health benefits.
"I look back on the decades of evidence about the benefits of vitamins. And I'm giving it to people now in a form that, to me, is much more convenient to take, in a product that's more convenient to take," the founder said.
Buiced is also not the first liquid multivitamin brand to hit the market. GNC Holdings (GNC) offers a variety of liquid vitamins including the GNC Mega Men Liquid multivitamin, and GNC Women's Ultra Mega Liquid Multivitamin. Vitamin World offers liquid multivitamins such as the Origin of Life Complete Liquid Nutrition, and Vitacost.com sells All One Nutritech Liquid Life Certified Vegan Multi Vitamin Complete Nutrition Fruit.
Buiced, like many dietary supplements, is not FDA approved. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act Law requires the manufacturer to be responsible for ensuring that its dietary supplement products are safe before they are marketed. "Buiced Inc. has ensured that our dietary supplement product is safe," the founder told CNBC.
Boosting sales?
Doustdar told CNBC that sales of his product are growing monthly, but would not disclose specifics regarding revenue. He did tell CNBC the startup is profitable, and said that the business has been built to be fully scalable on a nationwide and global basis.
"We are able to maintain a very low overhead due to the proprietary manufacturing process and systems that we have created," said Doustdar.
To date, the startup has raised $250,000 in total funds. However, Buiced has not raised any venture capital, and is 100 percent bootstrapped. Doustdar is the company's only full-time employee, but he outsources manufacturers to generate Buiced.
The startup also just closed a deal with the Start Fresh Recovery Centers in California and Connecticut and are now part of their alcohol and drug treatment program.
See Ray Doustdar Power Pitch his big idea to a panel of experts with Dr. David Katz, a director at Yale University's Prevention Research Center; Richard Demb, CEO of Abe's Market; and Nikhil Kalghatgi, a partner at Vast Ventures.
—By CNBC's Joanna Weinstein
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