Primarch Manufacturing...is my custom manufacturing plant. Most people know about Trueprotein but Primarch is a bigger business. Primarch is stuff like two story mixers that can mix a whole pallet of a companies protein up in 2 minutes, into an assembly line with hoppers and augers...into a measured delivery system (2 and 5 pound jugs)...it then goes thru a labeler, capper, heat induction system (for when you fly over high altitudes like the Rocky mountains...otherwise the jugs will sometimes indent), sealers etc etc etc the whole works....just a huge assembly line of machinery (very expensive machinery...this last mixer we bought cost 70k if i remember right...and that doesnt even include the setup of it)....also in Primarch are capsulizers, dedusters, capsule counters etc etc etc and also a liquid manufacturing line (LBA's)......Primarch makes up a great deal of the large scale products for Trueprotein, things we sell alot of including protein blends, BCAA mixes, capsulized products etc etc......
Trueprotein is the retail side of things that everyone sees and in that building (close to Primarch) is a large clean room and we do the small order manufacturing, but with racks and racks of inventory (which Primarch has also)....Trueprotein's business model is changing though because of the new GMP rules and mountains of paperwork we must now maintain on the smallest of orders (cost of doing business on companies who order 33 thousand jugs from us but its the biggest pain in the ass in the world when we are doing 20 small orders for individuals customers that are alike).
I will say this.....it is very clear to me and my business partner why everyone goes into the retail side of things with supplement sales...low overhead, no machinery, low cost, basically you have custom manufacturers like Primarch make your product, ship it out to where you want it to go (distribution centers to disperse to GNC, vitamin shoppe etc)...and your only job is pretty much "marketing"....just an office with computers and guys in business suits pushing "products and marketing is where you spend your money.
Manufacturing? Paperwork up the ying yang, ridiculous amounts of money spent on the machinery involved (again my business partner and I did this virtually all out of pocket for cost of machinery).....and unlike retail where you get your money quick, there are always "terms" so you front alot of product and wait 30-90 days to get paid on it. Some of these companies I manufacture for....Doug and I extend alot of money up front to get paid in the end...and that can be stressfull.....Ive been taken by two companies in the last few years....one very recently-a very known company with famous pro bodybuilders on their roster as front men, famous pro bodybuilders that have columns in the largest bodybuilding magazine out there. But I am hearing they jacked one of those bodybuilders pay and looks like he is jacking us too.....sucks. {Taken means = I made their product, shipped them over to that company on good faith, and they took the product and are selling it but keeping 100% of the profit and not paying us}...kind of our fault because an employee of ours vouched for them and said they were good people and were in a bind (other manufacturer was out of product) and were people of their word. Lesson learned...All it does is make me incredibly careful with the next company who want us to make product for them and our terms get much more stringent because of these prior company's that screwed us over.
Why have the custom manufacturing plant when its such a pain in the ass and so expensive? It allows me to do something other companies cant. I can buy raw materials in huge volumes to get prices other companies cannot. It allows me to make the products ourselves which virtually 99% of other companies cannot do (and making it ourselves allows me to even have lower prices)....and then Trueprotein wise you put plain generic jugs and plain white labels on the products (again allows highest quality materials at absolute lowest cost)....so you guys kind of see how sometimes I have to bite my tongue when I see a small company that i know doesnt have tremendous buying power putting out a product for a very cheap price that beats everyone else in the industry including bigwigs like Optimum/Glanbia. I think...wait a second....I buy huge volumes of that material (unlike them), I make it myself which saves a GRIP of money (which they cannot do, they have to pay a custom manufacturer who gets paid, to make it), and I sell that with no fancy label, no fancy jug and no 13000 dollars a page advertising rate in multi magazines.....how the hell is that guy beating my price unless whats inside the jug is...............and thats the main thing that sucks about the supplement industry.
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