David Shakarian (February 27, 1914 – September 11, 1984) was the founder of the American company GNC (General Nutrition Centers), a nutrition company now widely known among professional athletes and people leading a healthy lifestyle.
David B. Shakarian, founder of General Nutrition Centers (known as GNC), a major health food company, died of cancer at age 70. Shakarian, who suffered a heart attack in 1969, resigned as GNC's CEO but remained president. The heart attack had prompted him to quit smoking 20 cigars a day.
Shakarian, one of five children of Armenian immigrants, inherited a health food store in downtown Pittsburgh. In the 1930s, he transformed his small shops into a Pennsylvania-based chain of health products and vitamin stores.
At the end of the Second World War, stores began to sell vitamins and health foods rather than yoghurt, buttermilk and Bulgarian cultured milk, which were their parents' staple products. As early as 1941, the Shakarian family's five stores were operating in Pittsburgh. Over the years, the Armenian family business would gain momentum and the number of Americans willing to buy food to eat healthy would increase. In the 1960s, America fell on a healthy eating spree and the GNC's geography expanded. The growth of the business began in the 1960s, and Shakarian said the view of exercise as a necessity and the growing anti-smoking movement was the driving force in the growth of his business. The Armenian-American entrepreneur made millions of fortunes during these years. In the 1970s, Forbes magazine estimated Shakarian's fortune at $530 million.
David Shakarian also took an active role in real estate investments. In the late 1970s, he bought a large property in the Bonita Bay area (Florida) that would later reach $1 billion in value. Alongside this, Shakarian started investing in the developing infrastructure of the tourist city.
David Shakarian died of cancer in 1984, and after his death, his family decided to sell the company he had founded. At the time of Shakarian's death, GNC owned 1,200 health food stores across America and Canada.
Currently, GNC Holdings Inc. remains a giant in the American sports and fitness nutrition business, with nearly 6,000 stores in the US and 49 other countries around the world.