GNC 2010 Annual Report Download - page 12

Table of Contents
vitamins. We sell herbal supplements in various solid dosage and soft gelatin capsules, tea, and liquid forms. We have consolidated our
traditional herbal offerings under a single umbrella brand, Herbal Plus®. In addition to the Herbal Plus line, we offer a full line of whole food-
based supplements and top selling herb and natural remedy products.
We also offer a variety of specialty products in our GNC and Preventive Nutrition product lines. These products emphasize third-party
research and literature regarding the positive benefits from certain ingredients. These offerings include products designed to provide nutritional
support to specific areas of the body, such as joints, the heart and blood vessels, and the digestive system.
Sports Nutrition Products
Sports nutrition products are designed to be taken in conjunction with an exercise and fitness regimen. We typically offer a broad
selection of sports nutrition products, such as protein and weight gain powders, sports drinks, sports bars, and high potency vitamin
formulations, including GNC brands such as Pro Performance, Pro Performance AMP and popular third-party products.
Diet Products
Diet products consist of various formulas designed to supplement the diet and exercise plans of weight conscious consumers. We
typically offer a variety of diet products, including pills, meal replacements, shakes, diet bars, and teas. Our retail stores offer our proprietary
and third-party products suitable for different diet and weight management approaches, including low-carbohydrate diets, and products
designed to increase thermogenesis (a change in the body's metabolic rate measured in terms of calories) and metabolism.
Other Wellness Products
Other wellness products is a comprehensive category that consists of sales of our Gold Card preferred membership and sales of other
nonsupplement products, including cosmetics, food items, health management products, books, and DVD's.
Product Development
We strongly believe that introduction of innovative, high quality, clinically proven, superior performing products is a key driver to the
business. Customers widely credit us as being leaders in health products and rate the availability of a wide variety of products as one of our
biggest strengths. We identify shifting consumer trends through market research and through interactions with our customers and leading
industry vendors to assist in the development, manufacturing and marketing of our new products. Our dedicated Innovation team independently
drives the development of proprietary products by collaborating with vendors to provide raw materials and clinical and product development
support for proprietary GNC branded products. We also work with our vendors to ensure a steady flow of preferred products that are made
available exclusively to our channel for a period of time. During 2009, we targeted our product development efforts on specialty vitamins,
women's nutrition, sports nutrition and condition specific products, resulting in the introduction of the WELLbeING and AMP lines.
Research and Development
We have an internal research and development group that performs scientific research on potential new products and enhancements to
existing products, in part to assist our product development team in creating new products, and in part to support claims that may be made as
to the purpose and function of the product. See Note 2, "Basis of Presentation and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies," to our
consolidated financial statements included in this report. 7