John Ewing Co. buys Fla. supplement maker

AGRIBUSINESS

LA SALLE – The ongoing fever for mergers and buyouts has hit this small Northern Colorado community, too.

Nutrapro Inc., a Colorado-chartered corporation and owner of the John Ewing Co., which has operated here for more than half a century, recently purchased Vitality Systems Inc., a company based in Tampa, Fla., said Chris Shaver, Nutrapro’s chief operating officer.

Both companies manufacture and distribute dietary supplements for animals.

Shaver, who bought Ewing in 1995, said the purchase was a stock swap valued at $1.5 million. The merger is projected to swell Nutrapro’s 1997 revenues of $1 million to $2.5 million in 1998, he said.

“We…