Walk into any UK pharmacy and you'll find shelves of NMN, Lion's Mane and magnesium. Pick up a bottle and read the back. You'll typically find five to eight ingredients per capsule, only one of which is the active you came for. The rest are flow agents, bulking agents, anti-caking agents and dyes. They are there because they make manufacturing easier — not because they help you.
We started ZENOA because that gap kept getting wider. The "premium" supplement market has filled with slick branding, generic contract-manufactured product and marketing language that doesn't survive a literal reading of the label. We wanted a shorter answer: name what's in the bottle, dose it at clinically relevant levels, manufacture it to a standard you can verify, and skip the rest.
This page is the comparison.
How ZENOA compares — at a glance
Three columns: typical UK high-street, premium UK brands (Heights, Wild, Form), and ZENOA. Each row is a specification we think matters.
| Typical UK high-street | Premium UK brands | ZENOA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NMN dose per capsule | 125–250mg | 300–500mg | 500mg |
| NMN delivery format | Standard immediate-release | Mostly immediate-release, some delayed | HPMC delayed-release |
| Lion's Mane extract concentration | Often raw powder, no ratio | 8:1 to 10:1 typical | 12:1 standardised, 30% polysaccharides |
| Bioavailability enhancer (e.g. Black Pepper) | None | Sometimes | Black Pepper extract included |
| Capsule shell | Often gelatin (animal) | Mostly vegan | Vegan HPMC, every product |
| Bulking agents / fillers | 5–8 typical (rice flour, magnesium stearate, silicon dioxide, microcrystalline cellulose, titanium dioxide) | 2–4 typical | Zero. Active + capsule shell only. |
| Manufacturing standard | Often unspecified or "to high standards" | UK GMP or US FDA-equivalent | UK GMP code of practice, BRC accredited facility |
| Third-party testing | Rare, often unverified | Yes, batch-level | Yes, every batch — Certificate of Analysis on request |
| Country of manufacture | Often unspecified or imported | UK or EU | United Kingdom |
| Founder accountability | No named founder | Named founder + advisory board | Named founder (Ulas Celik), advisory review in progress |
| Price per 60 caps NMN 500mg equivalent | £15–£35 (often half-dose) | £40–£70 | £19.99 |
| Subscription option | Rarely on-brand | Yes | Coming Q3 2026 (currently eBay store) |
| Money-back guarantee | Varies | 30-day standard | 30-day MBG via eBay store |
Where the premium brands beat us
Honesty cuts both ways. Here are the things we don't yet match.
On-site checkout and subscription
Heights, Wild and AG1 all sell directly with subscription-and-save built in. We currently route purchases to our eBay store (where we have an 8-year, 100% positive feedback record). We are building on-site checkout for Q3 2026 — not because eBay isn't reliable, but because subscription is the right model for daily-use supplements and eBay can't host it.
A larger advisory board
Premium brands like Heights publish 5–9 named scientific advisors with clinical credentials. Ours says "Independent Science Review in progress" — because we are commissioning a registered nutritionist (RNutr) to review the formulations and would rather wait and name a real expert than fill the page with marketing. This is the right call long-term but costs us perceived credibility short-term.
Marketing scale and customer count
Wild Nutrition cites over 300,000 customers. AG1 has Hugh Jackman and an Olympic athlete partnership. We are a small operation. We don't yet have hundreds of thousands of reviews, a press kit full of magazine logos, or a celebrity endorsement. What we have is honest formulation, real founder accountability, and a price point that doesn't require hype to justify.
Where we beat them
Ingredient minimalism
Compare a ZENOA NMN ingredient list (NMN + capsule shell) to a competitor's (NMN + magnesium stearate + silicon dioxide + microcrystalline cellulose + gelatin shell + titanium dioxide). Every additional ingredient is a manufacturing convenience, not a customer benefit. Two ingredients done properly beats eight done cheaply.
Clinically relevant dose at high-street price
Most high-street NMN is sub-clinical (125–250mg per capsule, where the published trials show NAD+ elevation begins at 250mg/day and is well-documented from 500mg). We dose at 500mg per capsule and price at £19.99. Premium brands at the same dose are typically £40–£70.
Delayed-release as standard
NMN is degraded by stomach acid. We use HPMC delayed-release capsules that bypass gastric pH and dissolve in the small intestine where absorption happens. Most competitors at our price point use immediate-release capsules and lose a meaningful portion of the dose to the stomach.
Founder accountability, not a holding company
You can email the founder. Name on the label, photo on the site, real address in London. No private-equity holding company, no faceless brand identity. If something is wrong with your order, hello@zenoa.co.uk reaches a person who cares about your opinion of ZENOA.
Compare for yourself.
The labels are honest. The dose is clinical. The price is fair. The founder is reachable.
See NMN 500mg See Lion's Mane 1500mg