Shaklee

Overview

Shaklee Corporation was founded in 1956 by Forrest C. Shaklee and his sons, building on a chiropractic and nutrition practice Forrest Shaklee had run since the 1910s. The company develops and sells nutritional supplements, weight-management products, beauty/personal-care items, and household cleaning products, distributing them primarily through a network of independent distributors/members rather than retail stores, supplemented by direct e-commerce sales. Over its history the company's headquarters moved several times within the San Francisco Bay Area (Hayward, Emeryville, San Francisco, then Pleasanton) before relocating to Miami, Florida, its current registered headquarters. Corporate ownership has also changed hands over the decades: Shaklee was briefly publicly traded on the NYSE before going private in 1989, was majority-owned by the Japanese pharmaceutical company Yamanouchi for a period, and in 2004 its worldwide business was acquired for roughly 310 million US dollars by Roger Barnett's Activated Holdings together with Ripplewood Holdings. Barnett remains Chairman and CEO as of 2026. Today Shaklee operates as a privately held direct-selling company with a presence in the United States and several other countries, marketing itself around science-based, sustainably produced wellness products and long-running environmental/carbon-neutral claims.