Are any of your Ingredients purchased from China?

This is a question that comes up from time to time, primarily no doubt from the various horror stories about contaminate foods coming out of China. Even though the media tends to exaggerate the extent of the problem there is still cause to be concerned and of course aware.

Cindy posed the question: Are any of your ingredients purchased from china? Are any of your products made in china?

I responded:

Hi Cindy,

None of our products are made in China. For 10 years we have had a policy that we will only supply products that we manufacture ourselves...so, they are all made in New Zealand. With regard to ingredients, we purchase over 250 to use in our various products, and yes some of those ingredients are made in China. In fact, some ingredients are now only made in China, including many popular pharmaceutical ingredients, so irrespective where a product is manufactured it is highly probable that there may be some Chinese component. (If the manufacturer is being honest)

It is a reality these days that all of us either knowingly or unknowingly are consumers of some form of Chinese ingredients/products. However, it must be kept in mind that there are good as well as bad manufacturers in China as in any other country. The ingredients that we source from China are only purchased after serious vetting of the manufacturer. This usually involves site visits and always an extensive testing protocol on every shipment. All the ingredients that we use are quarantined when they arrive at our facility. Samples are taken from the pack and identified using an IF machine. Additional samples are sent to an independent government approved laboratory for an assay test, as well as purity and potency testing along with testing for contaminants.

Nothing is released for use in our products until the lab reports back that it meets our specifications. If it does not pass then the ingredient is returned to the supplier. We have very few failures as most of our suppliers have been dealing with us for 10 years and they know that we test everything. Having said that, we do have the odd failure but, no more so from our Chinese suppliers than those from our American or European suppliers.

So, you can rest easy that no substandard, adulterated or contaminated ingredients find their way into any of our products. Our QA/GMP system picks up any problem ingredient whilst it still in quarantine.

Warren