The Missoula, Montana based company has announced an expansion of its production capacity by bringing on-line a second manufacturing facility in the region.
The new facility will provide NLI with over 90,000 sq ft of contract manufacturing, laboratory and administrative offices representing an eighty percent increase in capacity, with the opportunity for future development.
The second facility's production capabilities include blending, encapsulation and packaging.
"This expansion is needed as a direct result of increased demand from current clients for high quality manufacturing and lab services that can meet the proposed GMPs for dietary supplements," said Terry Benishek, president of NLI. The current quality systems exceed the anticipated requirements for supplement GMPs, according to Ned Becker, the company's vice president of sales and marketing.
"We believe we are compliant in all areas of the forthcoming GMPs and do not anticipate any substantial changes to how we operate nor any incremental costs to our operation," Becker told NutraIngredientsUSA.com.
Becker explained that NLI is a contract manufacturing company that does not market its own brand of products, but focuses on supporting the manufacturing needs of international sales and marketing companies.
"NLI is a fully integrated service provider of high quality dietary supplements, which includes product development services and extensive in-house laboratory testing capabilities," said Becker.
He added that the company's production is focused on capsules, tablets and bottle packaging. The expansion will provide NLI with a monthly production capacity of 175 million for encapsulation, 80 million for tableting and 1.5 million (based on 90 ct. bottles) for bottling.
For confidentiality reasons, Becker was unable to say which brand names or marketing companies are pushing the need for expansion. He did note, however, that the greatest product category growth areas include weight control products, functional women's health products and custom multivitamin/general wellness formulas.
At present, NLI is operating - including the new plant - at 70 percent capacity utilization, according to Becker.
"We have the capability to expand our new facility as necessary to support ongoing growth. We plan on maintaining a level of excess capacity to support new business opportunities," he said. Before adding that: "Further expansion could occur within the next 12-24 months, depending on current discussions with existing and new customers."