By Brett Hoyt, Sr.
If you’re a doctor, nurse practitioner, naturopathic physician, or other health care provider, perk up your ears.
You are in a prime position to tap into a market that’s looking for you.
How do I know? I’ve seen many changes in this industry as a contract manufacturer. Supplements, vitamins, herbal formulations have come and gone. Today, acai is hot – tomorrow it’s green tea. Sports nutrition is hitting hard. Now everyone’s looking for arthritis formulations.
But despite all of this waxing and waning, I’ve seen one consistent trend overall. More and more people are making nutritional supplements a part of their life. And, of particular interest to you, increasingly people are looking to purchase them from a health professional directly.
Few industries have the strength and growth potential of the nutritional supplement industry. According to a report released by market research group Packaged Facts, the industry has experienced steady growth even with a recession breathing down its back.
Nine billion dollars of supplements were sold in 2009 in the US alone. From 2005-2009, the market grew by a total of 26%.#
Plenty of factors contribute to this –
Even the economy has helped.
As people tighten their wallets – many unfortunately losing their jobs and health coverage with the recession – the cost-effective promise of supplements holds enormous appeal. Expensive statins and diabetes drugs are gathering dust on pharmacy shelves as consumers shift their dollars to natural cures and preventative medicine.
“Part of the resiliency of nutritional supplements during this trying economic period stems from the fact that Americans are losing confidence in their ability to pay for healthcare, even as the economy shows signs of turning around,” said Don Montuori, publisher of Packaged Facts in the report’s abstract. “Compared to doctors visits, hospital stays, and prescription drugs, nutritional supplements can be a bargain.”#
Indeed, less people can afford costly surgery or drugs. However, even if they’re looking for alternatives to conventional medicine, they still want an authoritative recommendation for the best nutritional replacements or complements.
For this reason, if you’re a health care practitioner interested in getting into supplement sales, you’ve got an advantage in this already strong industry. Nutrition Business Journal reported that for 2009, supplement sales through health practitioners totaled a whalloping $2.1 billion, far outpacing supplement sales growth overall.
People are much more open to taking nutritional products recommended by their doctor or health provider.
For many practitioners, being able to offer proven, effective, safe formulas to their patients under their own private label is an easy step in expanding their practice.
In fact it may be what saves your practice . . . or what saves you from your practice . . .
Many of our customers who are also doctors, tell us how hard it is spend the time they want with their patients. Like dentists, in essence, if you’re not drilling you’re not billing. If you’re not seeing patients, you’re not charging. And insurance reimbursement levels have only added to the pressure to see more patients.
However, if you can create another source of income through your practice, you can free yourself up so you can
Selling supplements as part of your business is a wonderful complement to what you’re already doing. And as the Nutrition Business Journal data shows, you’re in a prime position to make this a successful addition to what you’re doing already.
Nonetheless, despite the increasing demand for nutritional products, getting your foothold in the marketplace is not easy. You need to invest time and money to market your products.
The last thing you want to worry about is the production side of things . . .
And that’s where finding a good contract manufacturing partner comes in.
With the right partner, you can focus your attention on building your business. And rest assured that production part is taken care of.
Better yet, with a good partner you can
And we offer an additional service that many of the health providers we manufacture for love.
We offer over 200 stock formulations.
Even if you have done the research and would eventually like to develop a custom formulation, starting with a stock formulation allows you to test the waters in a smart way. Stock formulations are cheaper to produce. And in addition, we can manufacture them in smaller batches for you so you can start at your own pace.
And, last but not least, they’re proven sellers.
By starting with a stock formulation instead of your own custom formulation, you can focus on setting up the infrastructure for your new business. You can work out the quirks of adding this service to your practice before you’ve invested heavily in product development.
Find Out How Contract Manufacturer Services Can Help You Start A Supplement Business
Sound like a good route to take? Well, there are still the details to work out. Contact our account management team today and we can help you turn this idea that’s worked for so many of our practitioner customers into a success story for you.
Call us at 1-800-233-2112 to find out how we can help you as a contract manufacturer. Supplements, vitamins, herbs, drink mixes, you name it – we will help you take a solid step towards building your business through nutritional product sales.
