The Oregon-based contract manufacturer specializes in capsules and is in the process of expanding its facility by adding new technologies and more than doubling capacity from a current 1.8 billion capsules per year to over five billion capsules per year.
Speaking with NutraIngredients-USA during a recent tour of their facilities in Clackamas, OR, Wright explained that the company is not only adding new technology like aluminum blister packaging but also expanding its quality measures by offering compliance with pharmaceutical good manufacturing practices (CFR 211 GMPs).
“We’re adding the 211 compliant capability so that we can offer out customers the opportunity to take a product into foreign markets that require specifically that probiotics be made in an OTC-licensed facility,” he said. “Also to add that OTC capability allows us to have better conversations with brands that want to take a dietary supplement product into potentially an OTC environment here in the US.”
The company is unique in probiotics because of its manufacturing facility, said Wright. “We are 100% humidity and temperature controlled from raw material storage through blending and encapsulation, and packaging. That gives us the ability to produce a product that the manufacturing doesn’t degrade the probiotics in any way, and it stabilizes the probiotic in the final dosage form in order to give a better stability profile to those probiotics … to give a product that meets label claim at the end of shelf life.”
Category growth
Growth in the US sales of probiotic dietary supplements has slowed over the last couple of years, albeit from double digit levels that were outpacing other dietary supplements categories. Wright said the company expects growth to continue, with innovation remaining a key driver.
“We do anticipate the growth to continue. It is going to ebb and flow a little bit – we’re not going to see 20% growth year over year in the next 10 years, but we’re going to continue to see growth in the probiotic category,” he said. “Being innovative in that arena being able to provide better dosage forms, better packaging, better stability profiles for our end brands is going to help drive that market to where consumer confidence continues to grow.”
