FitLine is a supplement and cosmetics brand sold exclusively by PM-International AG , a Luxembourg-headquartered direct-selling company ranked among the ten largest in the world by revenue. It is not sold in retail stores.
The company
PM-International was founded in 1993 by Rolf Sorg in Limburgerhof, Germany, after his employer went bankrupt and he used his savings to start the business. The Luxembourg holding was established in 1994; the international headquarters has been in Schengen, Luxembourg since 2015, with German operations run from Speyer. Direct Selling News ranked PM-International fifth globally on its 2025 DSN Global 100 list, with company-reported revenue of $3.25 billion for 2024 and more than $4 billion for 2025. The group operates over 45 subsidiaries across more than 40 countries on six continents and employs more than 1,000 people worldwide, around 300 of them at the Speyer logistics center. Sorg, born in 1963 in Ludwigshafen and a Luxembourg resident since 1998, remains founder, chairman, and CEO of the group; Manager Magazin named him Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014 and Direct Selling News awarded him its Bravo Leadership Award in 2023.
What you buy
FitLine is PM-International's sole product brand, covering dietary supplements, weight-management products, and topical skincare. The flagship is the PowerCocktail , a daily powder drink with fiber, vitamins, selenium, and caffeine. Other core supplements include Activize Oxyplus, an energy and B-vitamin drink; Restorate, an evening mineral formula with calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, selenium, and vitamin D; and Basics, a fruit-and-vegetable concentrate with vitamins, selenium, dietary fiber, and probiotic cultures. The ProShape family addresses sports nutrition: ProShape Amino provides essential amino acids and ProShape All-in-1 is a meal-replacement shake. The FitLine skin line covers topical anti-aging care, including the Ultimate Young and 4ever ranges. PowerCocktail, Basics, Restorate, and Beauty are each listed on the Cologne List, a batch-testing program run by the Center for Preventive Doping Research at the German Sport University Cologne that screens for anabolic steroids and stimulants. The listing reduces contamination risk for tested batches but does not certify complete freedom from all banned substances; athlete responsibility remains unchanged. Since July 2024, FitLine has been the ATP Tour's official sports nutrition and energy bar provider through 2026.
How it's sold
PM-International does not sell through retail stores or open e-commerce channels. Products reach consumers via independent Team Partners, a direct-selling network where distributors earn a retail margin on direct sales and residual commissions on the purchasing volume of people they recruit, across roughly twelve compensation levels. Direct Selling News ranks PM-International fifth globally by revenue in direct selling. PM-International does not publish an income disclosure statement, so company-specific earnings data is unavailable. For industry context: the FTC's 2024 review of seventy MLM income disclosure statements found that most participants in those companies earned $1,000 or less per year; a 2018 AARP survey put the proportion of MLM participants who lose money or earn nothing at around 74 percent. In 2017, the Norwegian television program TV2 Helsekontroll aired an investigation into FitLine's sugar content and the compensation structure, citing an independent university analysis. PM-International sought an injunction to block the broadcast; the Oslo District Court rejected the application in March 2018 and ordered PM to cover court costs. The ruling addressed press freedom, not whether the company operates a pyramid scheme.
Does it work?
The centerpiece of PM-International's product philosophy is the Nutrient Transport Concept , branded NTC. NTC is a registered trademark (WIPO international registration 1495693, 2019), not a patent on a biological mechanism. PM-International holds roughly 22 granted patent families, covering formulation compositions such as guava extract and elderberry extract; none establishes the 'nutrients delivered to cell level' effect the marketing describes. A 2019 randomized controlled trial in Nutrients ( König et al. , DOI 10.3390/nu11071512) found that a supercritical CO2 guava extract, the basis of FitLine C-Balance, significantly reduced post-meal blood glucose peaks versus placebo. The study received public funding from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency and FH Oberösterreich; one co-author was a PM-International employee. No comparable independent peer-reviewed trial validates NTC as a delivery system across the broader product range. Vitamin and mineral function claims on FitLine labels, such as 'vitamin C contributes to normal immune function,' are legally permitted under EU Health Claims Regulation 1924/2006 because the products contain those nutrients, not because NTC is validated. The evidence on supplements and longevity is sobering: a 2007 JAMA meta-analysis ( Bjelakovic et al. , 47 low-bias trials, 180,938 participants) recorded slightly elevated total mortality among antioxidant supplement users (RR 1.05); the US Preventive Services Task Force concluded in 2022 that evidence is insufficient to recommend multivitamins for cardiovascular or cancer prevention in well-nourished adults. This article is editorial, not medical advice.