USANA inks deal to become Utah Athletics’ nutrition partner, adds more than 500 Ute athletes to sponsor roster

USANA is now the official vitamin, mineral and nutrition partner of the University of Utah, the company announced in an event at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Tuesday.

As part of the partnership, Salt Lake City-based USANA will add more than 500 athletes across all of Utah's 19 sports to its sponsorship roster.

"USANA has been a Utah-based company for 35 years and we felt it was super important to support our home community where we operate and have hundreds of employees that work and operate here," said Brent Neidig, USANA's chief commercial officer.

"We actually have hundreds of employees that have graduated from the University of Utah. To us, it's a natural fit. The University of Utah excels in excellence and they have a phenomenal program here. We feel it's a great opportunity for us to provide our world-class supplements to the program.

USANA and Utah have been discussing the partnership for the past "year or so," per Neidig.

As part of the deal, USANA will provide Utah Athletics with its line of nutritional supplements.

"Utah Athletics' partnership with USANA is a game-changer for our student-athletes and our Performance Nutrition program," said Meredith Price, Utah Assistant A.D. for Performance Nutrition, in a press release.

"Our team of dietitians work individually with student-athletes to optimize their nutrition for performance, recovery and health. Having access to high-quality, third-party sport-tested supplements from USANA allows us to keep health and safety at the forefront of our recommendations."

Utah and USANA will also provide athletes the opportunity to work with USANA Foundation, which has a goal of ending malnutrition. USANA will also help connect University of Utah athletes with youth sports organizations.

"One other thing that we're very excited about is the opportunity to incorporate the athletes here at the university with our foundation, which is engaged in providing food and meals to children in need all throughout the state here," Neidig said.

USANA's sponsorship of Utah Athletics will primarily focus on providing athletes with products, but there will be NIL opportunities for athletes.

"A product-first partnership, and that's how we structure all of our deals around the world. We have over 4,000 elite and Olympic athletes that consume our product. Whenever we start a conversation with a new organization or team, we always focus on the product first. That is the primary bulk of our partnership, which is providing products to the athletes here," Neidig said.

"Naturally, there is some other additions to the partnership, a little bit of NIL money."