Superior products begin with superior raw materials and every raw material that enters our building is inspected and quality control approved. All materials go through a rigorous inspection to ensure they meet predetermined standards that have been set for each raw material. As an additional step, we also meet face to face with raw material manufacturers on an annual basis as part of our Vendor Certification Program to ensure that we have a sound understanding of each material and can address any new advances that may have developed in the previous year. Unlike many other dietary supplement manufacturers, we have our own in-house microbiological laboratory that is partitioned off from the rest of our facility and operates using a separate air-flow system. Before ingredients can be used in any product, they are subjected to testing in our microbiology lab for contamination including total aerobic plate count, yeast, mold, E. coli and other potential pathogenic organisms including staphylococcus, salmonella and pseudomonas to ensure that the materials meet or exceed the requirements of the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP). Only after quality control approval has been granted can the raw material be released for use in one of our products.
The manufacturing process itself is performed under tight controls by a team of highly skilled, dedicated staff, who strictly adhere to written Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) prepared in accordance with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), as listed under Nutritional Supplements in the USP32. All manufacturing takes place in temperature and humidity controlled conditions, and is under constant supervision. To further ensure precision and accountability, we electronically follow the entire manufacturing process, from the receipt of the raw material to the finished product. This allows us to track the progress of a product at all points through the production process and allows the various departments that work on the product to better interact, ensuring a quality supplement.
In addition to microbiology, our facilities have both physical properties and chemical analysis laboratories that ensure raw materials and finished products meet specific standards of quality, purity and safety. The physical analysis laboratory tests the weight, thickness, hardness, and disintegration of finished products, making certain that capsules and tablets disintegrate and release their nutrients in a timely manner. Using highly sophisticated analytical instruments, including HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography), ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma, used for mineral analysis), GFAA (graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry, used for heavy metals testing) and an FT-IR (Fourier Transform Infrared spectrophotometer), the chemical analysis laboratories test for the measurement of various vitamins, minerals and herbals to ensure that our products meet our meticulous standards of quality, many of which exceed the limits defined in the USP. Findings from our laboratories have been compared with independent lab reports on many occasions and have consistently been on target. In fact, many independent laboratories are often quite surprised and impressed when they learn the depth of our analysis capabilities and experience.
