OUR STORY
From a $80 Monthly Bill to a Brand Built From Scratch
I'm Abran. I'm 19 years old and I'm from Chicago.
This isn't a story about a team of nutrition scientists in a lab somewhere. It's not a story about a celebrity who slapped their name on a product for a check. It's not a story about a corporation that ran focus groups and A/B tested their way to a mission statement.
It's a story about a kid who got tired of being taken advantage of and decided to do something about it.
Where It Started
About a year ago I started taking my health seriously for the first time in my life. I was 19, carrying more weight than I wanted to, and genuinely trying to figure out how to feel better every single day. Not just look better. Actually feel better. More energy in the morning. Better focus. Less brain fog. A body that felt like it was working with me instead of against me.
I kept seeing AG1 everywhere. Every podcast I listened to. Every YouTube video I watched. Every athlete and creator I followed seemed to have a green bottle in their hand telling me it changed their life. So I bought it.
Eighty dollars a month.
I want you to sit with that number for a second. Ninety nine dollars a month is $1,188 a year. For a greens powder. From a brand that lists 75 ingredients on their label but hides every single dosage behind something called a proprietary blend. Which is a legal way of saying trust us without giving you any reason to.
I trusted them for two months. Then I started asking questions.
The Questions Nobody Wanted to Answer
How much spirulina is actually in here. How much ashwagandha. How much of anything. What am I actually paying for. Is this celebrity endorsement in the price. Is this proprietary blend protecting a genuinely unique formula or is it protecting a margin.
I couldn't get straight answers because straight answers weren't available. That's the point of a proprietary blend. You can't know. You just have to believe.
I didn't want to believe. I wanted to know.
So I started researching. I spent weeks reading about supergreens formulas, organic certifications, manufacturing processes, ingredient sourcing, and supplement industry margins. I learned that the actual cost to manufacture a premium greens powder at scale is a fraction of what brands like AG1 charge. I learned that the markup isn't going into better ingredients. It's going into marketing budgets and celebrity contracts and the kind of brand building that makes you feel like you need them.
I learned that I didn't need them.
Building Something Different
I'm a 19 year old kid from Chicago. I don't have a nutrition degree. I don't have investors. I don't have a team or an office or a lab. What I have is a relentless need to understand how things actually work and an absolute refusal to accept that premium quality has to mean premium price gouging.
I sourced a formula with 23 certified organic ingredients. Every single milligram of every single ingredient is listed on our label and on our website for anyone to read. No proprietary blends. No hiding. No trust me just buy it energy.
I chose a heat stable probiotic called Bacillus Coagulans because I learned that most greens powders use Lactobacillus strains that die before they ever reach your gut. I chose organic ashwagandha because chronic stress is real and adaptogens that actually work at functional doses matter. I chose organic matcha over synthetic caffeine because the energy should feel clean not like a crash waiting to happen.
I chose every single ingredient with intention and I can tell you exactly why each one is there.
And then I priced it at $55 a month. Not because I had to. Because I wanted to. Because I genuinely believe that the person working a full time job trying to take care of their health deserves access to a premium product without being made to feel like their wellness is a luxury.
What Claro Greens Actually Is
Claro Greens is not a supplement company trying to become a lifestyle brand.
It's a promise from one person to anyone who buys it that they will always know exactly what they're putting in their body, exactly how much of it, and exactly why it's there. That promise will never change regardless of how big this gets.
It's built in Chicago which means it's built on the understanding that nothing comes easy and nothing worth having comes without real work. This city doesn't reward shortcuts. Neither does this brand.
It's built by someone who is figuring this out in real time alongside you. I'm not a finished product. I'm a 19 year old who is learning, growing, making mistakes, fixing them, and building something I'm genuinely proud of every single day.
And it's built for the person who looked at their supplement bill and thought there has to be a better way.
There is. This is it.
Where We're Going
Right now Claro Greens is one product. One formula. One founder working out of Chicago trying to prove that transparency and affordability and premium quality can exist in the same product at the same time.
But the vision is bigger than one greens powder.
The vision is a brand that you can trust completely. Where every product we ever release comes with the same promise. Full ingredient transparency. Honest pricing. No proprietary blends. No celebrity markup. No insulting your intelligence.
A brand built on the radical idea that the people who care most about their health deserve to be treated with the most respect.
That's Claro Greens.
That's why I built it.
And that's why I'm just getting started.
— Abran Ochoa Founder, Claro Greens Chicago, Illinois Age 19
Have a question about our formula, our ingredients, or our story? Email us directly at hello@vitalblends.co. I read and respond to every single one personally.