Cardinal has capacity for larger MSM lots
expansions and process improvements, which has resulted in it being
able to offer continuously distilled MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) in
larger lots.
The company said that the need for improvements was driven by two factors: firstly, the fall out from prescription drug recalls and shortages of raw materials sourced from overseas (such as glucosamine from shrimp shells) has led to hot demand for its OptiMSM joint health ingredient.
Secondly, the FSA is expected to introduce good manufacturing guidelines, long promised as part of the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, sometime soon. These are expected to force up analytical costs for Cardinal Nutrition's customers.
"In preparation for the proposed regulation, we implemented continuous distillation and larger lot size to improve our customers' production efficiencies," said president David Lakey.
It is hoped that larger lots of MSM will facilitate more efficient purchasing and product analysis, saving the customers time and money.
Rod Benjamin, director of quality control, said that measures had been taken to ensure quality was unaffected.
"A stringent equivalency verification study protocol was employed, requiring dozens of consecutive lots to meet each of 24 individual quality specifications," he said. "We undertook this rigorous study to ensure that the high quality and consistency of OptiMSM would not be affected by the process change," he said.
