Mountainside Medical plans growth around new products

MARCY — Mountainside Medical Equipment, Inc. got its start in 2002 selling medical equipment, working with other local businesses like nursing homes to make sure they had the equipment their residents need. Martin Zarnock, Sr., a service-disabled veteran, started the business with his children Martin Zarnock, Jr. and Christina Nelson. Zarnock, Jr. found a niche at discovering products that people need, and that led to the development of Mountain Ice, a topical pain-relief gel, says Melissa Hollenbeck, national sales director of Mountain Ice. “There’s a need to help people who are in pain,” she says. Zarnock Jr. began researching formulas and ingredients, looking to create a product that could help with the state initiative to reduce opioid use in nursing homes. The result was Mountain Ice’s original pain-relieving gel that includes ingredients like turmeric root, arnica Montana flower extract, tea tree oil, and camphor. “Every single one of those ingredients took hours and hours of research,” Hollenbeck says. The gel, designed to relieve bone and joint pain, debuted in 2019, followed by a sports-recovery gel by early 2020, and sales have really taken off. Mountain Ice ships out between 350 and 400 orders daily, she says. “We’ve just been growing by leaps and bounds,” Hollenbeck says. To market Mountain Ice, they initially reached out to Mountainside Medical customers and have steadily been working to reach new markets since then. Currently, Mountain Ice is available at Rite Aid and Kinney Drugs stores. “Locally, we’re in a lot of independent pharmacies,” she adds. Mountain Ice has even broken into the professional sports world with teams including the New York Yankees and the New England Patriots using it. Locally, the physical therapists at Accelerate Sports in Whitesboro use the product as well. Skana Spa at Turning Stone Resort Casino offers Mountain Ice as a massage add-on. Both gels are FDA approved, a process that took many months of inspection by the FDA. That approval was important to not only show that the products do what they claim, but also to verify the quality of the ingredients used, Hollenbeck says. “People are becoming more and more aware of what they are using,” she says. “People are becoming label readers.” With January being the time of year most retailers do their annual reset of what products they will carry, Hollenbeck was busy reaching out to potential new customers. “I reach out every year to some of the bigger box stores,” she notes. Hollenbeck is actively working to expand Mountain Ice’s reach into the south. Locally, Mountain Ice is a sponsor of the Boilermaker Road Race, providing samples and coupons in the goody bags handed out to registered runners. “We find the people who are getting it and using it are really happy with it,” Hollenbeck says. Word of mouth for current customers has been great advertising. Mountain Ice is a subsidiary of Mountainside Medical Equipment, which is also growing. While the business still services its customers like nursing homes and correctional facilities and still operates a retail store front, it is really growing on the aesthetic and pharmaceutical side. Hollenbeck says. The company is working toward obtaining its pharmaceutical license for the continental United States so that it can better serve aesthetic clinics and doctors offices, especially for infusion therapies, she says. Between Mountainside Medical and Mountain Ice, the business employs 11 people. The company operates from 9262 Old River Road in Marcy, where it has its main offices, storefront, warehouses, and shipping facility.