The new facility is the company’s second in the country; the other is loced in Dong Nai Province. Both facilities are near Ho Chi Mihn City, the base for the company’s Vietnam operations, where Amway has been conducting business since 2009.
The new facility is part of Amway’s aggressive manufacturing expansion, something it shares with other network marketing companies selling nutritional products. As the pressure of compliance with GMPs has risen, more and more companies have sought to bring more manufacturing in house rather than to incur the risk of relying on contract manufacturers. Herbalife, for example has rapidly expanded its capabilities in recent years with a state goal to manufacture as much as two thirds of its products itself.
Facilities in three countries
In Amway’s case, the company has commited $375 million to its global R&D and manufacturing expansion. In addition to the facilities in Vietnam, this now includes four facilities in the United States (two in Michigan, one in California and one in Washington State) a new manufacturing facility in India. Also in late 2013 Amway broke ground on a new botanical research facility in Wuxi, China.
Direct Selling News, a publication which does an annual ranking of the top 100 companies employing that business model, now lists Amway as the leading company, having passed Avon in the latest ranking. Amway, a private company, reported $11.8 billion in sales in 2013 and said that sales of nutritional products now represent a majority of the company’s revenues.