You Can Now Get Your Vitamins at the Dollar Store - But Should You?

Recently, I discovered a selection of vitamins and minerals on Dollarama's shelves. The dollar store has slowly been adding more medicinal products such as travel-sized bottles of Advil but I wouldn't have expected to find vitamins there.

After all the hoopla a few years ago about dollar store vitamins not being all they were supposed to be, I figured a healthy dose of skepticism was in order, so I did a little investigating.
The iVita brand stocked by Dollarama is manufactured right here in Canada by a company called Vita Health Products Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The full address is printed on the label and they have an extensive website where you can read the history of the company, read the online flyer, order products and much more. So far, so good.

Secondly, they offer a full money-back guarantee on the Dollarama vitamins.

Lastly, if you've ever bought the Equate brand of vitamins and minerals at a Loblaws or Walmart pharmacy, you'll see that those store brands have the Vita Health Products address on the label as the manufacturer, too.

All of this speaks to me of a reputable company and makes me feel that the dollar store product, iVita, is everything it's supposed to be. Indeed, Dollarama has always set the standard for other dollar stores to follow and I can't imagine them putting anything like this on their shelves that they weren't 100% confident would be of a high quality.

Here's a list of what you'll find for $2 a bottle:

Multi-vitamin + iron, 36 tablets
Vitamin B 12, 36 tablets
Vitamin B 50, 24 tablets
Omega 3, 1000 mg, 24 tablets
Calcium Carbonate & Vitamin D, 600 mg calcium and 125 IU vitamin D, 24 tablets
Glucosamine, 500 mg, 30 tablets
Vitamin D3, 1000 IU, 50 tablets
Chewable Vitamin C, 500 mg, 30 tablets

The price of the dollar store vitamins, however, isn't any cheaper, on average than the vitamins sold at Walmart. The only difference is in the number of tablets you're getting. Here are a couple of examples:

Jamieson chewable vitamin C, 500 mg, comes in a bottle of 120 tablets and costs $6.97. That's about six-cents per tablet, the iVita chewable vitamin C costs about the same.

Webber glucosamine 500 mg caplets, come in a bottle of 360 for $18.47. That's about five-cents per caplet. The iVita glucosamine costs about six-cents per tablet.

The Equate brand of B12 tablets costs $6.73 for 100 tablets or about seven-cents per tablet and the iVita B12 works out to be about 5 1/2 cents per tablet.

On average, you're not really saving by buying the bigger bottles so the only question that remains is whether or not you trust the iVita brand.

Vita Health Products is also supplying Dollarama with other over-the-counter medicines, namely, acetaminophen tablets, 24 regular-strength 325mg tablets or extra-strength 500mg tablets, acid reducer to relieve and prevent acid, 10-75mg tablets and diarrhea relief, 2mg caplets in a package of six. Each package costs $2.


RELATED LINKS

How to Tell if Your Dollar Store Purchase is Safe
Health Food That's Actually Junk: The 7 Worst Offenders
How to Detect Counterfeit Drugs

Marlene Alexander is a writer and dollar store diva. She writes tips and ideas for budget home decor using only items from the dollar store.