In its quest to make nutrition both fun and functional, Herbaland Naturals has evolved into Canada’s largest manufacturer of nutritional gummy products – but as any successful entrepreneur knows, staying on top requires continuous creativity, innovation and an ability to adapt to market trends.

With North American consumer demand of gummy supplements forecasted to continue, Herbaland co-founders Musharaf Syed and Aisha Yang needed a way to differentiate their product line against larger corporate competitors in the crowded nutraceutical industry.

“The US market in particular is highly competitive and demanding of innovations in the gummy product sector, including flexible and green packaging options,” explains Aisha. “We received numerous requests from large US companies for these capabilities and were convinced this was the way to expand.”

Luckily for the family business, the Canada-BC Agri-Innovation Program was there to help meet that demand. Cost-shared project funding allowed them to purchase and calibrate two pieces of equipment that would secure them a coveted advantage.

With their new dual texture gummy production machine, they can now combine two gummy formulas into a single piece, expand their product range, and use ingredients that are sensitive to air, light, crystallization or other factors without a protective coating.

The new equipment also enables them to design different active ingredients and colors for inside and outside layers, allowing them to offer an enhanced variety of nutritional characteristics tailored to specific client requests.

For Aisha, one of the many benefits the new technology affords is an enhanced relationship with their local network.

“Increasing our volume has increased our purchasing power, allowing us to be more discriminating of suppliers and able to more effectively liaise with local agri-suppliers,” she says, noting that they’re currently working with more than ten local producers as a result of the project.

North of 49 Naturals, for instance, supplies Herbaland with organic cranberry and blueberry powder sourced from farms in Richmond, Abbotsford, Delta and Langley. With the new machinery in place, North of 49 president, Andrew Small is excited to see a steady increase in purchasing from Herbaland.

“It’s great to see the support as we all know we need it to get our local products value-added into new markets!” he says.

And with the addition of a flexible green packaging machine, Herbaland has also emerged as a leader in corporate sustainability, offering one of the only form and seal solutions to fully comply with all commercially-available biodegradable film types.

With increased production, enhanced quality and reduced bottling costs, Herbaland expects these new features to generate at least $2.5 million in additional sales over the next five years and has already hired eight more full-time staff to meet the surge in demand.

“We’ve been receiving lots of positive feedback and orders from our local and overseas customers, including large American nutraceutical companies,” Aisha reports. “We have even embarked on several new projects with GNC Global, expected to generate over one million USD annually.”

And thanks to additional funding delivered by IAF for local and international marketing initiatives, Herbaland has also been able to increase domestic sales by over 400 percent and export revenues by 120 percent between 2016 and 2017.

While excited about the immediate increase in returns, Herbaland is focused on their longer-term vision, determined to become a global leader in the nutraceuticals industry.

“There are not many gummy manufacturing companies that create new and innovative products that will shape the future of the supplement industry—this will be Canada’s first dual texture two active-ingredient gummies that will raise the bar in natural health product markets everywhere,” Aisha predicts.

Funding: $146,223 provided by the Governments of Canada and British Columbia through Growing Forward 2, a former federal-provincial-territorial initiative for the innovation and export projects (INN285, EX001, EX124, EX253, EX364, EX475); $28,250 committed by the Government of British Columbia for the Buy Local project (BL412).