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WHY I DO WHAT I DO
A JOURNEY BORN FROM LOVE
This was never just a business to me. It began with love, continued with purpose, and will always carry Annie’s name.
People sometimes ask why a technologist ended up spending 17 years of his life on nutrition, amino acids and peptide research. The honest answer is that I didn’t choose this path. Life chose it for me — and this page is the longer version of the story behind Alkaline.
From Brazil to the starting blocks
I was born in Brazil and immigrated to Australia, where sport became my first language. I trained as an Olympic-track athlete, and athletics earned me a full scholarship — which I used to complete a double degree in biotechnology and computer science. Biotechnology, because I wanted to understand exactly how the human body works and how to make mine perform better. Computer science, because I loved building things. Merging those two worlds — the body and the machine — became the pattern of my entire life.
A builder from the age of 19
I started my first business at 19: a web hosting server that grew into domain registration, SSL, and full ecommerce websites, and eventually into Naswell CMS (2001–2006) — a platform where small and large companies could run their entire business in one place. Over those years I built hundreds of turnkey online businesses, and later engineered Australia Post’s warehouse management system and their Fulfilio fulfillment app. For 14 years I lived and breathed technology, and I thought I understood the direction of my life. Then everything changed.
Annie — where this journey truly began
My late wife, Dr. Annie Guillet, was a Doctor of Chiropractic with a deep desire to help others. Shortly after her 32nd birthday in 2008, she became seriously ill and was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer. We were initially told she might have only two weeks to live. I stepped away from the business I had built to care for her, and I searched around the world — consulting researchers and practitioners across continents — for knowledge, research and anything that might help us understand what she was facing. That search introduced me to the science of pH balance and the role of bioavailable amino acids in recovery, and it planted the seed of everything Alkaline would become. I lost Annie in 2009. Her death divided my life into a before and an after.
Building Alkaline
I could not change what had happened, but I could choose what I did with the love, grief and questions she left behind. In 2009 I founded Alkaline Inc. — a family-run company from day one. Our first breakthrough was Alkaline Extreme Protein: I took standard acidic dairy protein and re-engineered it to be pH-balanced, and made it genuinely taste good. It sold millions of units and helped shape an entire category, showing an industry built on acidity that there was a healthier way. But behind the products, my real work never stopped: studying nutrition, amino acids, peptides and emerging areas of research, year after year.
The peptide chapter
My study of amino acids led me, inevitably, to peptides. I traveled to learn from the best — from university research communities in Montreal and Australia to formulators around the world — and developed my own approach to synergistic blends. In 2019 that work culminated in the formulation that became ProHealix, and in the pH-balanced peptide capsule formulations we pioneered: combining research peptides with digestive enzymes in balanced, capsule-ready form. To me these formulations represent years of learning, discipline and purpose — not a miracle or a medical promise. My role was never to make claims I could not prove. It was to keep searching, uphold quality and transparency, and make responsible research materials more accessible.
Never just a business
Every business needs revenue to survive, but money was never the reason I stayed on this path. I remembered the helplessness of watching someone I loved suffer while searching for answers. I wanted my work to serve something larger than myself: to encourage curiosity, support responsible research, and help move the conversation about human health — recovery, pain, performance and longevity — forward. Behind every order was a real person trusting us to be honest about what we offered and what we could not promise. I have never taken that trust lightly.
Closing this chapter
Seventeen years is a long time to carry a mission born from loss. I am proud of what we built, but I am also tired. After years of fighting to keep this vision alive, I need time to recover, care for my own health and be fully present for the family I am blessed to have today. I want to watch my children grow. That is why this is our final stock: when the current inventory is gone, this chapter closes for good. Closing it does not erase why it began — it honors the lesson at the heart of it: that the people we love must come first.
Thank you for trusting me, supporting this work, asking thoughtful questions and helping carry Annie’s legacy forward. I hope Alkaline is remembered not simply for what we sold, but for why we tried: to turn heartbreak into service, pursue knowledge with courage and leave behind a little more hope.
With heartfelt gratitude,
Paulo Freitag
Founder, Alkaline Inc.
In loving memory of Dr. Annie Guillet
The journey — good memories
Research use only. For laboratory research only. Not for human use.
