NBTY, a manufacturer and distributor of high-quality vitamins and nutritional supplements, opened its newest vitamin manufacturing facility on the east side of San Antonio, Texas. Its new facility, which will produce vitamins for brands such as Nature's Bounty, Disney and Sundown Naturals is its' first in Texas, and joins other world-class NBTY operations in New York, Florida, Arizona and California.

The company said its San Antonio center is part of NBTY's strategy to build out its manufacturing capacity in a growing health and wellness market, where consumers are taking a more active interest in supporting their own health through the use of vitamins and supplements. Getting the San Antonio facility in place provides high quality and innovative manufacturing capability to accommodate growth in NBTY's gummy vitamin business.

"Gummy vitamins are the fastest growing form of vitamins, up almost 30 percent versus a year ago and we expect that trend to continue," said Jeff Nagel, CEO of NBTY. "The facility produces a wide variety of gummy products including multi-vitamins, fiber, melatonin and calcium gummies. It has been fitted with the most state -of -the art manufacturing equipment available and is the first Gummy vitamin plant to utilize a unique and advanced process which helps to ensure superior flavor, color and efficacy. The addition of this facility to our world-class roster of manufacturing operations is a huge step in our move toward putting capacity and process innovation in place to accommodate the expected continued growth of this industry."

With the capacity to manufacture at least 15 million vitamins every day, the output of this plant alone is enough to provide vitamin doses to every child living in both New York, NBTY's home state, and in Texas. The factory opening has already created 45 jobs in the developing east side of San Antonio. When running at full capacity the plant is expected to employ more than 100 local associates and bring manufacturing of all NBTY gummy vitamins fully in-house.

"We are so pleased to welcome a global anchor business, such as NBTY, a well-known health and wellness giant, to the East side of San Antonio," said Steve Waters, Chairman of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation. "We expect that their presence will provide a huge benefit to the economic development of this area and will help us to attract other world-class organizations and jobs to the East side, and to our community. We're honored and grateful that NBTY selected San Antonio as the location to further its growth."

"It's a significant step when a global leader in the health and wellness industry like NBTY puts down roots on the East Side of San Antonio," Mayor Julian Castro said. "It's my hope that NBTY's future success will encourage other companies to consider the tremendous potential of the East Side."