Ingredient specifications: A critical first step to high-quality natural product sourcing

Clarity is crucial in natural ingredients and raw materials for nutrition and supplements. Industry experts warn that clear expectations, accurate documentation, and rigorous verification and analysis are critical to ensure product quality and effective international trade.

Nutrition Insight continues its conversation with Nuherbs and Nammex, examining how they ensure the sourcing of high-quality ingredients from China with clear specifications, having “feet on the ground” and verification programs, and how policies like tariffs may affect trade and product quality. 

Earlier this week, the US-based companies sourcing their botanicals and mushrooms from China highlighted the country’s agricultural, historical, and processing expertise. 

“You have to be very clear about what you want, what you’re buying, and then test for that,” says Wilson Lau, president of Nuherbs. 

He says that importing high-quality products from China is only more challenging for companies if they don’t have the right programs. “What we do is not rocket science; we might go above and beyond, but we’re just following the rules.” 

In addition, he says there’s a cultural fluency about doing business in any country; buyers have to ask the right questions in the right way. “If we don’t have clarity in understanding culture and don’t spell it out, there are areas for confusion.” 

Skye Chilton, CEO of Nammex, highlights the importance of knowing an industry: “What are the risks, where are the risk points, and how do you control for that and insure for that?”

Importers as gatekeepers

While it is important for importers to find trustworthy suppliers, Lau and Chilten underscore the need for importers to verify the products they source from them.

Lau explains that importers have to meet local and US requirements: “In the US, we have the Foreign Supplier Verification Program, where we, the importers, will have to inspect every single facility and verify every single product made at that facility.”

“The government purposely did this to put the responsibility and onus on the importers, so they can no longer say, ‘I didn’t know,’” he adds. “We offer a second set of eyes on top of the US FDA and manufacturing.” 

Lau stresses that importers have to be very clear about what they want, what they’re buying, and then test for that.Lau underscores the importance of having “feet on the ground” for this verification. “If bad products are coming in, it’s not the packer’s fault; it’s your fault. If you’re buying from somebody and they didn’t do their work, that’s your fault. You’re not verifying them.” 

“We have to verify our suppliers,” agrees Chilton. “We’re doing our own audits and third-party audits — testing is all part of that.” 

He highlights three steps to ensure suppliers’ products meet buyers’ expectations: “Did they have the right specification? Did they meet that specification? Did you verify that specification?”

Tariff impact on quality and price

Experts expect the tariffs the US government threatens to impose on Chinese products will impact their industry. Chilton says there will be companies where quality may suffer because it is hard to maintain if there is a push on price or if customers and consumers expect a specific price. 

“Something’s got to give,” he adds. “Either you’re raising prices, which is passed down to your customers, ultimately to consumers, and then you get inflation, or you’re pushing back on your manufacturing partners, and you don’t know if they will take the margin hit.” 

“All of us are looking for ways to save money, but ultimately, you still need to have the same quality process in place to guarantee that quality and that comes back to your specifications.”

Chilton says long-term relationships must be a win-win: “You can’t just move on to the next one who can give you the price you want.”

Lau adds that the margins in the natural products industry for raw material and ingredient companies are not large enough to “give out margins” nor to ask that of their supplying partners. “If their margins are 15% and I ask for a 10% or even a 20% margin hit, they’re losing money.” 

Chilton cautions that even with tariffs raising costs, long-term buyer-supplier relationships must be a win-win.Crucial clarity

Buyers of health ingredients and botanicals use documentation to clarify product details. Such product specifications or technical data sheets include information on product name, description, classification, components, appearance, moisture content, microbiological analysis, use of preservatives, and shelf life. 

The experts underscore that poor or unclear product specifications are an ongoing issue in the natural product industry, impacting product quality. Specifications may not specify the botanicals’ name, plant part used, or testing method.

Lau illustrates that if a buyer wants to buy cordyceps fungi, a genus that consists of hundreds of species, but doesn’t specify a particular species, it becomes difficult for suppliers to offer the correct fungi. A company may supply Cordyceps militaris, while a buyer is looking for Cordyceps sinensis. 

Chilton adds: “If a buyer doesn’t know what they’re buying and sends it to a lab to get tested, and they’re saying it’s something else, the lab doesn’t know. It just uses the provided intake form, which says what it is.” 

He says that lab variants can also affect outcomes. “They could run the same method and get different results based on even their analytical chemists that day.”

Lau adds that specifications must include a tolerance range to account for that. “There’s always testing variability. Like when you weigh, different scales will have different plus and minus tolerances.” 

“We set a specification and a testing method, for example, we say, by TLC (thin-layer chromatography) or by HPTLC (high-performance TLC),” he notes. “If you use another method, the results will be very different.” 

Another issue that Chilton refers to is the use of plant-to-extract ratios. “We’re seeing 50:1 and 100:1 extracts; how do they get that number?” 

Specifications include info on product name, description, classification, components, appearance, and microbiological analysis.A plant-to-extract ratio of 50:1 signifies that fifty kilos of a plant are used to produce one kilo of dried extract. 

“That ingredient, if it were real, should cost a fortune. There’s no way you’re putting it in a US$20 or US$30 product,” cautions Chilton. “When you think about how much is getting pulled out of that to make that, you’re taking 1% of that original plant or mushroom.”  

From specifications to quality

At the same time, Lau underscores that quality is more than a specification. “If we look at the specification, we’re only looking usually at certain indices, not the whole.”

“If you only put down X% of ginsenosides and you don’t specify which part of the plant you want, suppliers may use the ginseng leaf, which is cheap and has a high content of ginsenosides. But that’s not what the science literature says is good for you; it’s 4% ginsenosides of ginseng root, not the leaf.” 

Lau adds that buying by price also affects product quality issues. “The specification isn’t in the product; it’s in the price. You can make something for a lower price, but it won’t be the same quality.” 

“The specifications are a simple answer to a complicated problem,” says Bill Chioffi, COO at Nammex. Although good specifications can help enhance quality and consumer trust in Chinese products, they are not enough. 

“We have a poor-quality system in the US, and that’s already in the consumer’s mind,” he states. “How do you enhance that trust and quality from Chinese products to the consumer while we’re still struggling within our industry to understand what that quality means?” 

“It doesn’t mean just meeting specifications,” says Chioffi. “It means meeting whole levels of specifications, then certificates of analysis; those are two different things.”

He adds that specifications that don’t ask to measure a product’s content are not of good quality. For example, if a company uses a “by input” method to verify a supplement’s strength, it could say it used 50 mg of vitamin C per pill without weighing or analyzing that content. 

The experts say it is crucial to know the natural product industry, understand potential risks, and control and insure for those risks.In addition, trending botanicals that people are not yet familiar with are more prone to adulteration for economic reasons.

“You don’t hear about the herbs that probably are highly adulterated because they’re so hard to find, not many people are using them, and they’re for particular uses,” says Chioffi. “Yet there is a market to adulterate those because it extends the lack of knowledge across that botanical.” 

Industry expertise

Another essential aspect Lau and Chilton point to is knowing the natural product industry, understanding potential risks, and controlling and insuring for those risks. 

“A newer company might not know the right questions to ask, or where potential breakdowns can happen, or which things to look for,” says Chilton. “There is so much nuance, and that comes from expertise.”

He adds that inexperienced buyers might believe what a supplier’s documentation specifies without verifying or setting aside sufficient money to test it. 

“Many buyers in the industry now are too far removed from what they’re buying. They don’t understand and aren’t industry experts,” adds Lau. “When you’re not from this industry, a price of under US$1–2 seems normal. If you don’t have that expertise and knowledge, you’re just buying based on price.” 

“It’s easy to misunderstand things,” he continues. “You can look for ginger powder or ginger extract powder, which are two different products, and the specifications must be clear.” 

For example, if a buyer is looking for ginger extract powder, a much more concentrated form than ginger powder, but refers to this as “ginger powder” in the specifications, a supplier offering dried and ground ginger, not an extract, can still meet them.