What would you do if you were suddenly no longer allowed to eat almost all your favourite foods? That's exactly what happened to me.

Hello, my name is Rosemary Mellahn and I am the founder of Surpresa Natural. I am originally from Cape Town, where I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by nature. Although I have always led a fairly healthy lifestyle, at the age of 40 I was diagnosed with various food intolerances, which unfortunately were also the foundation of some serious health problems. Suddenly, I was no longer allowed to eat many of my favourite daily foods, including staples such as bread and eggs. This circumstance forced me to think about my diet much more seriously than before and for the first time look at nutritional supplements. At this point I could not yet foresee how much this topic would soon take hold of me.

The more I read, the clearer it became to me that the right food supplements can have a very positive effect on keeping the body healthy and supplying it with energy - provided the quality is right, of course. But with millions of products on the market, it's not easy to find the one that is right for you. I quickly discovered that many of the products were full of synthetic ingredients or contained undesirable additives - something that would never be an option for me as a person who lives as naturally as possible. On top of that, the dosage of the individual nutrients was, in my eyes, simply wrong in many products.

And so the desire manifested itself in me to create my own line of food supplements: they should be completely natural, contain no unwanted additives or solvents and consist of a particularly high proportion of natural, selected raw materials.

I benefited from the fact that my husband Kai had already been in the ingredients business for over 25 years and gave me access to some of the world's leading manufacturers. And so together we started to launch our first products: natural magnesium and glucosamine and chondroitin. The initial feedback was great, and more and more requests for new products followed. And so our product range grew steadily, always geared to what solutions the people around us were actually looking for.

Even though the wild nature of Portugal has become our home in the meantime, the production of our Surpresa Natural products still takes place in Germany - always according to international standards such as HACCP and GMP. This sets us apart from many manufacturers on the market. We are particularly proud of the quality that we have established over the years and which is also appreciated by many regular customers. 

And should you ever stray to Portugal, why not visit us in the beautiful town of Cascais, where I offer walking tours in the spectacular countryside. You can find out more at www.my-cascais.com.