This is a UsefulVitamins Brand File: a reference dossier on the company behind the product, built only from documents we actually pulled and read this session. Our method is simple. Every claim below traces to an SEC filing, a court record, a federal database, or a page the brand itself published, and anything we could not verify is labeled that way.
LMNT is a strange case in the best sense. Most supplement brands tell you everything about their "story" and nothing verifiable about their structure. LMNT accidentally inverted that. Because it raised money from the public through Regulation Crowdfunding, it filed annual reports with the SEC, and those filings answer questions that most brands can dodge forever.
Quick facts
| Fact | What we verified |
|---|---|
| Founded | October 5, 2018, in Florida as Elemental Labs, LLC; converted December 30, 2019 to Drink LMNT, Inc., a Delaware corporation |
| Headquarters | 1150 Central Ave, Naples, Florida per SEC records; principal office in Big Sky, Montana per its own filings |
| Parent company / ownership | Independent. CEO James Murphy held 95.93% of voting power per the April 2024 SEC annual report |
| Manufacturing | Contract manufactured. LMNT’s SEC filings describe delegating manufacture to third parties; no manufacturer or facility is named anywhere we could find |
| Third-party testing | Batch COAs published for select flavors from Dyad Labs and Genista Biosciences; no USP, NSF, or Informed Sport certification found |
| Recall & FDA history | No recalls in the openFDA food enforcement database and no FDA warning letter we could locate; at least five consumer class actions filed 2025 to 2026, all pending as of our last check |
| UV Transparency Score | 4/10, scored line by line below |
Who actually makes it
Start with the fact that surprises most LMNT subscribers: Drink LMNT, Inc. reported zero full-time employees in its April 2023 SEC annual report, and again in 2024. Every person who works on LMNT is supplied through a services agreement with Proton Fitness, LLC, a company indirectly majority owned by LMNT's own CEO, James Murphy. LMNT paid Proton Fitness about $4.11 million for those services in 2022.
A company with no employees does not run a factory. LMNT's filings say so directly. The 2023 annual report warns investors that "the quality of our products may be adversely impacted if companies to whom we delegate manufacture of our products" fail to meet specifications, and the 2024 report repeats that the company is "dependent upon certain third-party vendors, in particular certain manufacturers and distributors." That is direct, first-party evidence of contract manufacturing, which is more than a guess from a label.
What the filings never do is name the manufacturer. Neither does the website, the FAQ, or the science subdomain. We checked all three this session. The 2024 filing mentions LMNT purchased $350,000 of "production related equipment" in 2023, which hints at some owned hardware inside someone else's supply chain, but the facility itself stays anonymous. So: where LMNT is actually blended and packed is not publicly disclosed, and that gap costs points in our score below.
Here is the label check you can run on any supplement, once. US regulations require the label to identify a responsible party, and the wording matters. "Manufactured by Brand X" means the brand runs the facility. "Manufactured for Brand X" or "Distributed by Brand X" means someone else made it. LMNT's public materials give you no facility to trace either way, so the honest answer to "who makes LMNT" is: an unnamed contract manufacturer, on behalf of a Delaware corporation with its principal office in Big Sky, Montana.
History and ownership
The founding story checks out. LMNT's our-story page names four founders: Robb Wolf, the paleo author and podcaster; Luis Villasenor, co-founder of the Ketogains community; Nicki Violetti, a CrossFit gym pioneer; and James Murphy, the CEO. The SEC filings confirm all four founders by name, with Wolf as Vice President and Vice Chairman and Murphy as CEO and Chairman. The product began as a homemade "I needed more salt" recipe for low-carb athletes and was formed in Florida in October 2018 under the name Elemental Labs, LLC.
The ownership story is less folksy. In January 2023 the company issued 100 shares of supervoting stock carrying one million votes per share, all to Murphy. In March 2023 it agreed to buy out one unnamed co-founder and his affiliates for $14 million, with a five-year non-compete attached. After those two moves, the April 2024 filing lists James Murphy with 95.93% of all voting power. The thousands of small investors who bought crowd SAFEs in the 2021 and 2022 Regulation CF raises (a combined $2.68 million) hold instruments with no votes at all.
None of that is improper, and it is all disclosed, which is exactly why we can report it. But if you pictured LMNT as a partnership of podcast hosts, the paper says otherwise. It is functionally a one-man-controlled company that grew from $31.6 million in revenue in 2021 to $78.7 million in 2022 to $206.3 million in 2023, with $41.9 million of net income that year. The company stopped filing with the SEC in April 2024, when it terminated its Regulation CF reporting, so numbers after fiscal 2023 are not public.
Testing and quality record
This is where LMNT earns real credit. The brand's quality and testing page claims every batch gets third-party testing for label claims, microbial contaminants, and heavy metals. Plenty of brands say that. LMNT actually posts the receipts: two downloadable certificates of analysis from named, independently accredited labs, with an offer to send the certificate for any specific lot if you ask.
We downloaded and read both. The Drink Mix COA (Citrus Salt, 6 g serving) comes from Dyad Labs in Salt Lake City, a Merieux NutriSciences company, dated October 2025. Lead came in at 0.0773 micrograms per serving against a 0.5 microgram specification, arsenic at 0.0455 micrograms, and all pathogen screens were negative. The Sparkling COA comes from Genista Biosciences in San Jose and shows lead at 0.125 micrograms per 16 ounce can, again well under spec. Sodium, potassium, and magnesium all landed inside their label ranges on both certificates.
Two caveats keep this from being a perfect section. First, the posted COAs cover one flavor per product line; other flavors are available only on request, so verification per SKU depends on you asking. Second, we found no USP, NSF Certified for Sport, or Informed Sport certification on any LMNT product. For a powder aimed heavily at athletes, the absence of a banned-substance certification is a real gap for anyone subject to drug testing, even though nothing in the COAs suggests a contamination problem.
Recalls, warning letters, lawsuits
Recalls first, because the record is clean and checkable. We queried the openFDA food enforcement database in August 2026 for both the product name and the recalling firm, and both queries returned zero results. We also found no FDA warning letter naming Drink LMNT in the public records we could reach. No recall and no FDA enforcement action appears in the federal databases we searched, and that is how a clean record should be stated: as the result of a specific search, not a vibe.
The litigation record is busier. On June 4, 2025, two New York purchasers filed Sciortino v. Drink LMNT, Inc., a class action in the Eastern District of New York, case 1:25-cv-03126. We read the complaint. It alleges that LMNT markets its mix as keto and paleo friendly with "no dodgy ingredients" while each serving contains 300 to 450 milligrams of maltodextrin folded into the "natural flavors" line, an amount the plaintiffs note would exceed the potassium and magnesium combined. These are allegations, not findings; LMNT has not been found liable for anything, and the case had no reported resolution in the public docket as of our last check in August 2026.
Sciortino is not alone. The same docket search surfaced at least four parallel consumer suits filed between April 2025 and February 2026: Hippe in Wisconsin, Vaughn in Montana, Thomas in Florida, and Gianne in California. On the other side of the ledger, LMNT has been an aggressive trademark plaintiff, suing a similarly named brand called ELMNT in at least three districts and a company called Live Oasis in Delaware. For context on what the fuss is about, LMNT's current ingredients page lists salt, citric or malic acid, magnesium malate, potassium chloride, natural flavors, and stevia, with no maltodextrin appearing anywhere on the page as of August 2026. Whether the courts find the older labeling deceptive is exactly what the pending cases will decide.
UV Transparency Score: 4/10
Here is the rubric, applied line by line with the evidence.
Publishes COAs to consumers: +2 of 2. Two real certificates from named accredited labs are downloadable today, and lot-specific certificates are offered on request. Awarded in full.
Names or operates its own manufacturing facility: 0 of 2. The opposite is documented. SEC filings describe delegated manufacture by unnamed third parties, and no facility is identified anywhere. Denied.
Third-party certification (USP/NSF/UL) on core SKUs: 0 of 2. We found no such certification on any LMNT product this session. Denied.
Clear ownership disclosure: +1 of 1. Unusual but earned. The website itself stays quiet, yet the company's SEC filings lay out officers, voting control, and related-party deals in detail, and LMNT links those filings from its own footer. Awarded.
Clean recent recall record: +1 of 1. Zero entries in openFDA's food enforcement data and no warning letter located, as of August 2026. Awarded.
Public response to testing controversies: 0 of 1. We could not find any public LMNT statement addressing the maltodextrin lawsuits. Denied.
Ingredient sourcing disclosure: 0 of 1. The ingredients page lists what is in the mix but nothing about where any input comes from. Denied.
Total: 4/10. The score reads harsher than the vibe of the brand, and that is the point of a rubric. LMNT is better than most at proving what is in the pouch, and worse than it should be at showing who makes the pouch.
The product range, mapped to our reviews
LMNT's range is deliberately narrow: the flagship Drink Mix in roughly a dozen salt-forward flavors, the canned Sparkling line, and seasonal chocolate flavors meant for hot water. The formula logic is the same everywhere, 1000 mg sodium, 200 mg potassium, 60 mg magnesium, and whether that ratio is right for you matters more than the flavor list. We walk through the value math, the taste reality, and who actually needs that much sodium in our full LMNT review. If the price per stick stings, we compared the credible cheaper options in our roundup of LMNT alternatives on Amazon, and we put the two biggest names in the category head to head in Liquid IV vs LMNT.
If you are still deciding whether you need an electrolyte product at all, start with our complete guide to electrolytes, which covers when supplementation earns its keep and when plain food and water win. Heavy sweaters can get a personalized sodium estimate from our sweat rate calculator before paying for anyone's powder.
FAQ
Who owns LMNT?
Drink LMNT, Inc. is independent, with no parent company. Per its April 2024 SEC annual report, CEO and co-founder James Murphy controlled 95.93% of voting power through common stock plus 100 supervoting shares carrying one million votes each. Co-founders Robb Wolf, Luis Villasenor, and Nicki Violetti remain named officers or key persons in the filings.
Where is LMNT made?
Not publicly disclosed. LMNT's SEC filings confirm third parties manufacture the product, but neither the filings nor the website names the manufacturer or the location. The testing labs are in Utah and California; that tells you where samples were analyzed, not where the powder is blended.
Is LMNT third-party tested?
Yes, at the batch level. LMNT publishes COAs from Dyad Labs and Genista Biosciences for its Citrus Salt Drink Mix and Sparkling, and offers lot-specific certificates on request. We found no NSF Certified for Sport or Informed Sport certification on any LMNT product as of August 2026.
Has LMNT ever been recalled?
We found no recall in the openFDA food enforcement database and no FDA warning letter naming Drink LMNT, checked in August 2026.
Is LMNT being sued?
Yes. At least five consumer class actions filed in 2025 and 2026 allege the "natural flavors" in LMNT contain undisclosed maltodextrin, contradicting its no-sugar, no-dodgy-ingredients marketing. The lead case, Sciortino v. Drink LMNT in the Eastern District of New York, was still pending without a reported resolution at our last check. Allegations in a complaint are not proof of wrongdoing.
Did LMNT really raise money from regular people?
Yes. Two Regulation Crowdfunding rounds in 2021 and 2022 raised about $2.68 million from thousands of small investors in non-voting SAFE instruments. The company terminated its SEC reporting obligation in April 2024, so its financials after fiscal 2023 are private.
The bottom line
Judge LMNT on documents and you get a split verdict. On product verification it behaves like a brand with nothing to hide: named labs, published certificates, clean federal enforcement record. On corporate transparency it behaves like a private kingdom: an unnamed factory, zero employees on paper, services routed through the CEO's other company, and voting control concentrated in one person. Neither half of that picture is a scandal, but only one half is disclosed voluntarily, and the pending natural-flavors litigation will test how much the marketing matched the pouch. If you use LMNT and it works for you, the COAs are a genuine reason for confidence. If full supply-chain transparency is your bar, this brand does not clear it yet.
