Better Health for All

GNC demonstrates a strategic focus on health-positive impact through its diverse offerings. The company provides virtual healthcare services, including urgent care, primary care, mental health, and physical therapy, along with access to prescription medications.

GNC also offers dedicated support programs for individuals using GLP-1 agonists, addressing common side effects such as muscle loss, bone density reduction, digestive issues, and malnutrition. The Premier tier of GNC Health includes virtual mental health care. GNC invests in clinical research, conducting studies on GLP-1 users' nutritional needs and over a dozen university-led clinical trials on its protein products, with ten published in peer-reviewed journals. These trials are conducted in partnership with top-tier research institutions to reduce bias, and results, including those showing no significant difference from placebo, are reported, indicating comprehensive ethical frameworks and full transparency in research. GNC provides substantial health education through trained GNC Coaches in over 2,300 U.S. locations and expert resources on GNC.com, with study results informing future education efforts. However, GNC has faced safety issues, including a Class III recall of 144,430 units of Women’s 30+ Vitapak multivitamins in April 2025 due to an undeclared fish allergen, though no incidents were reported. The company's business model does not involve holding healthcare-related patents.

Fair Money & Economic Opportunity

GNC settled three class action lawsuits for $6 million in 2019, alleging the company advertised fake markdowns online and misled customers about product value.

Consumers report GNC's own-brand supplements are often priced 30-50% higher than comparable options online. The sales model incentivizes employees to push higher-margin items, with reports of store associates adding items to carts and using 'hard sell' upselling techniques. GNC offers a price match guarantee for identical products, with a $25 limit for online orders. As GNC is a retailer and does not offer financial lending or deposit services, there is no relevant evidence for the remaining KPIs, which are designed for financial institutions, leading to their omission.

Fair Pay & Worker Respect

In 2017, GNC's CEO-to-median worker pay ratio was 453:1, with the CEO earning $6,918,152

and the median worker earning $16,901. Employee engagement, as measured by the percentage of employees who would recommend working there to a friend, was 49%. Employee reviews indicate an overall rating for pay and benefits of 2.7 out of 5 stars, with some store managers reportedly earning less than McDonald's cashiers and part-time associates paid $9.50 per hour as of April 2, 2025. Reported hourly wages for sales associates range from $10 to $21, and a janitor position was reported at $19 per hour. Reviews frequently mention high turnover rates and a lack of work-life balance, with some part-time positions lacking benefits. Mentions in reviews include potential violations of Texas State Law regarding rest periods, frequently missed paychecks and bonuses, and denied PTO.

Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing

The provided articles do not contain specific, quantitative data points for any of the KPIs under 'Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing'. While some articles mention GNC's agreement to revise its internal approach to vendors

, require explicit guarantees , establish ingredient lists , and take immediate action on non-compliant products , these are either future commitments, qualitative statements, or lack the precise numerical evidence required by the rubric for fair-trade certification, audit frequency, labor incidents, traceability coverage, remediation speed, ethical clause coverage, materials risk, or supplier diversity spend. Information about product origin (over 96% of GNC-branded products made in the U.S.) does not directly translate to the specific metrics requested for supply chain ethics.

Honest & Fair Business

GNC agreed to pay $2.25 million in October 2015 to avoid federal prosecution related to the alleged sale of misbranded dietary supplements in 2013.

This non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice included commitments to conduct more due diligence on vendors, create lists of acceptable and unacceptable ingredients, and suspend sales of products subject to FDA public warnings. GNC stated this agreement affirmed its full compliance with the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. A separate probe by the OCI found no evidence of wrongdoing in supplements sold at major retailers, including some by USP Labs, which received a clean bill of health from FDA labs. Earlier, in 1994, GNC paid a $2.4 million civil penalty for violating 1969 and 1989 FTC orders concerning false claims for food or drug preparations and cancer-related claims. The company states it has rigorous policies and procedures for third-party vendors and a zero-tolerance policy for employees deviating from high legal and ethical standards.

Kind to Animals

GNC offers a range of vegan-friendly supplements, clearly labeled as "vegan," "plant-based," or "algal oil."

These include vegan omega-3 supplements crafted with algal oil and vegan D3 sourced from lichen . The company lists 29 "Vegan Protein" products and offers vegan dietary products from various brands, including its own GNC AMP Plant Isolate Protein . GNC is expanding its vegetarian line , with total herbal and nutritional vegetarian supplements set to expand to over 100 . The company states a commitment to transparency, ingredient quality, and a broad selection of products that fit a plant-based lifestyle . One supplier has passed a rigorous independent audit of their facilities and earned permission to display the NASC Quality Seal .

No War, No Weapons

GNC Holdings Inc. is owned by Harbin Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd., a Chinese state-owned entity, which acquired GNC in 2020.

GNC operates over 80 retail stores on U.S. military bases. While the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) approved the 2018 takeover, a bill was introduced in April 2025 to ban Chinese-owned companies from operating on U.S. military installations, specifically targeting GNC. GNC allegedly hid its ownership in 2022 and 2023 when registering in the federal system. The company is a committed signatory to the UN Global Compact and its 10 principles of responsible business for its 16th year in 2026. Approximately 95% of GNC’s supplement suppliers are U.S.-based, and international agreements require a Manufacturer’s Code of Conduct explicitly prohibiting forced labor and human trafficking.

Safe & Smart Tech

User accounts are protected by passwords, with no mention of multi-factor authentication (MFA) options.

GNC retains customer service data for six years, and purchase and marketing data for three years from the last interaction or purchase. GNC uses industry-standard 128-bit SSL encryption for online order information and transactions. Users can update their registration data, manage profile preferences, change contact information, and unsubscribe from marketing and promotional emails. Residents of California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and Nevada have specific rights including the right to know, delete, correct, and opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information. GNC states compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including GDPR and CCPA. No documented incidents of unauthorized data use by the company are provided.

Zero Waste & Sustainable Products

GNC has implemented several waste reduction initiatives, including reducing paper use at its headquarters and stores through online communications, recycled paper use, and a green document management program.

The company also eliminated Styrofoam cups at its headquarters , switched to store bags with recycled content , and promoted reusable bags. Additionally, GNC launched a Recycling Reward Programme in Hong Kong in March 2023 , which offers a HK$10 discount voucher per bottle and has resulted in over 3,700 plastic bottles being recycled as of December 2023.