8 replies to this topic

[Declmem]

Hi everyone, I've been taking Carlson's vitamin D3 for a while (2000IU), and recently re-ordered some.

Oddly, this time the bottle is double in the size and the pills are like 3 times the size they used to be. The new ones are horse pills in comparison. Yet both pills supposedly contain the same amount of vitamin D3.

The packaging on both bottles is exactly the same, the dosage is the same (1 pill). Everything but the size of the pills/bottle is the same.

I'm curious as to what could account for this change? Anyone else had this experience with this or other supplements?

I emailed Carlson several times but haven't heard back.

Edited by Declmem, 09 October 2009 - 04:08 AM.

[rwac]

Did you try calling them ? They should have an 800 number on the bottle.

[tunt01]

carlson has responded to my questions in the past, by email.

i find them somewhat shady, they advertised one pill as having "magnesium oxide and magnesium albion" and it is like 95% oxide and 5% albion when you ask them what the mix is.

[nameless]

That's kind of weird. I see no logical reason to make a pill larger... not like consumers are clamoring to take larger pills. I'm curious what they'll answer with.

I've found their customer service sort of hit or miss. They were great when I called them once, got connected to one of their fish people who was really knowledgeable. As for email questions, they don't always reply.

I switched from Carlson to one of the olive oil Ds (currently trying Now), as although it's a tiny bit of fat, I didn't see a need for extra sunflower oil. And now the pills are 3x larger, there is more (albeit still tiny) extra sunflower oil.

And yeah, if you see a mag oxide mix on any label, assume it's like almost all of the magnesium. A lot of companies do that, and it is somewhat shady.

Edited by nameless, 09 October 2009 - 05:13 AM.

[Declmem]

Just got a response from Carlson:

All potencies of Vitamin D3, 400 IU, 1000 IU and 2000 IU have been resized
to a larger soft gel as the larger size is easier for an individual to
handle. This change in size also eliminates customer confusion that arose
as the 2000 IU soft gel was previously smaller than the 1000 IU in size.

There were no changes to the active ingredient Vitamin D3 or excipient. The
newly sized product is the same as you have previously purchased with the
exception that more of the excipient was used.

[nameless]

Marketing decision then, which is unfortunate and I think sort of silly. If they were going to make the gel bigger, they should have at least put something else in there... like K2.

[niner]

Marketing decision then, which is unfortunate and I think sort of silly. If they were going to make the gel bigger, they should have at least put something else in there... like K2.

I don't think it's that bad of a decision, or even a marketing decision. It's more of a product improvement, at least by their perception of what customers want. Personally, I like the little pills. If they added K2, then they would have needed to triple the price, or at least double it. D is a cheap compound, while K2 is expensive. I don't like things to be mixed because I like to be able to control the dose of each compound.

[nameless]

I suppose they think it's a product improvement, but to be honest I don't really see why. Who likes to take larger gels/capsules? If they make it bigger, at least put a healthy fat inside.

The K2 comment I meant more as an additional product, not to replace their D lineup with a mix entirely. I think someone should come up with a D3/MK-7 gel eventually, as it seems like a logical combination.

[maxwatt]

I suspect it's because the factory making it found it easier to process larger gel caps than smaller. For all we know, they changed their supplier, so the actual manufacturer is different now, with different equipment.

I like the idea of tiny, teeny, tiny pills like the old ones.