While there are sourcing challenges and questionable practices in the open market for botanical raw materials in China, we have worked hard to stay out of the typical sourcing loop.

To do this, we have partnered with a vertically integrated manufacturer. At the farm or wild-crafting site, our manufacturing partner ensures complete characterization of final product identity and composition first with the proper identification of the raw plant materials.

This raw botanicals purchasing group has extensive training in botany and Traditional Chinese Medicine that is indispensable during site visits. Over 70% of our incoming raw plant material is ethically wild-crafted.

To begin, these botanists test for proper botanical species identification using a combination of macroscopic physical examination of plant parts and Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) analysis, looking for unique marker compounds, and also screening for pesticides and heavy metals.

Only plants that are the right species, are unadulterated and clean, and have not been damaged in harvesting pass our thorough quality assurance protocol.

At the manufacturing facility, the raw plant material is processed in pure, clean, natural water. No alcohol, hexane or other industrial solvent is ever used, ensuring that no solvent residues will ever be present in the finished extract.

If any other materials are used in formulating or packaging, only pharmaceutical grade components are used. The water used for extraction undergoes a purification process that includes multilayer micro filtration, activated charcoal filtration, deionization, and multi-stage UV light treatment. The resulting water we use is USP grade.

Through a proprietary reiterative process, even stubborn compounds with low water solubility are extracted into the full spectrum result.

Throughout the processing procedure, the extracts are subjected to extensive analytical testing. This is another layer of assurance that we provide you with the best quality, the authentic species and plant parts, the proper marker compounds, and the full spectrum proportions of constituents.

To achieve this, a combination of technologies is used, including simple organoleptic testing, HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography), HPTLC (High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography), and UV Spectrophotometry. The HPTLC fingerprinting process ensures batch to batch consistency and no adulteration.

After the extract ingredients are spray dried into a powder, the powder is collected in an isolated temperature and humidity controlled clean room area of the facility. The clean room area prevents contamination of extract powders from moisture, dirt, and other extract powders.

The finished powder is double bagged with an ultra low diffusion Mylar® layer, then nitrogen flushed and packaged in protective drums for additional quality assurance.
ISO 9001:2000 Certification

The manufacturing facilities were constructed specifically to conform to internationally recognized quality standards. The Quality System Manual for the establishment and maintenance of manufacturing standards conforms to the International Standards Organization ISO9001:2000 standard for manufacturing.

Certification was performed by the internationally renowned Norwegian certifier DNV (Det Norske Veritas), one of the top 3 ISO9000 certifiers worldwide. Compliance with ISO9001:2000 standards is ensured by an on-site audit of the quality system every 6 months.