Bone, joint supplement manufactured in Carthage

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Photo by John Hacker
Debbie Rodgers and Denise Thornton, with Membrel LLC, displayed the company's bone and joint products at a booth at the recent Carthage Chamber of Commerce Business Expo. The company manufactures its supplements from eggshells and the membrane that lines an eggshell. "

By John Hacker

Debbie Rodgers and Denise Thornton, with Membrel LLC, displayed the company's bone and joint products at a booth at the recent Carthage Chamber of Commerce Business Expo. The company manufactures its supplements from eggshells and the membrane that lines an eggshell.

CARTHAGE, Mo. -

Egg shells are made of the same stuff that bones are made of, the membrane on the inside of an egg shell is made of the same stuff that cushions joints.

By drying, crushing and processing the remains of the eggs processed at the local MoARK plant in Fidelity, a Carthage company makes a natural supplement that contributes to healthy bones and joints.

Membrel LLC manufactures bone and joint supplements for people and dogs and ships them to health food stores and other places across the country.

"We actually manufacture the supplement here in Carthage and we sell it to local businesses and then they retail it from there," said Debbie Rodgers, with Membrel. "We have a drying facility in Fidelity just off Apple Road and then we have a processing plant on Missouri Avenue in Carthage, it used to be the old Party Stake plant."

MoARK has an egg production plant in Fidelity near the interchange between U.S. Highway 71 and I-44 south of Carthage.

Membrel was founded five years ago to make use of the calcium-rich eggshells that in the past had simply been thrown away.

Rodgers said Membrel has been around for five years, but it's only been really active the past two or three years. The company has about 20 employees and sends products to local stores and across the nation.

"We have stores right here in Carthage that carry the product, like Vista Pharmacy, Wilkinson's Pharmacy and Oak Street Herbs," said Denise Thornton, a sales representative for the company.

"We have stores in Joplin that carry the product. I think people like the idea of doing business locally and supporting business. We have Suzanne's and a couple of herb shops in Joplin. We are also sold nationwide, we are actually in some women's clinics that specialize in women's care due to osteoarthritis and osteoporosis and osteopenia with our calcium product, so it comes highly recommended by women's doctors.

"Rheumatologists will recommend the joint health product and we are in herb stores and some pharmacies nationwide."

Thornton described how the company's supplements work.

"You're getting your calcium from an egg shell that is 100 percent calcium," Thornton said. "We add vitamin D and magnesium because that helps the calcium get to the bone and do what it needs to do.

"That membrane on the inside of a shell is that skin you see that dries off of a shell. So it's separated from the shell and we take that membrane and grind it up to powder form and then capsulate it and that is for joint health. It's normally used for arthritis pain, stiffness in your hands, pain in your knees, lack of flexibility.

"The membrane is made of proteins that we see naturally occurring in joints," Thornton said. "But we begin to lose them with arthritis and free-radical damage and aging, so that membrane off of the egg puts that back in the joints and gives them the protein that are needed in repairing the tissue. It's all just a family of proteins that give the body the added nutrients that we seem to lose."
Thornton said the company makes other products as well.

"We also make one which is called joint health plus and we've added a few ingredients to the original formula to help with things that create an acute swelling or inflammation from an injury," Thornton said. "It gives the body what it needs to help that heal. Then we make a dog product, the same thing that would be in the joint health, we put in a chewable tablet for dogs because their first actual illness that you see as they age is the arthritis in their joints, hips and back."

She said the economic downturn has changed some things about the way the company does business, but it hasn't really slowed demand for their product.

"They want to keep the product on the shelf, so instead of ordering a case, they'll ask if we'll split a case, so we'll do a six and six for them," Thornton said. "They seem to still want to keep this in the shelves to offer to their customers because it really does work and they know it and they really like the product. I do hear from the stores that they're kind of juggling this and juggling that, but they'll pick their key products and keep them on and fortunately we're one of their key products."

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