Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/769284
I N D U S T R Y a p p l i c a t i o n DrVita, Las Vegas, NV, manufac- tures and markets nutraceuticals, including multivitamins, minerals, fish oil, and other dietary supplements. The products are sold directly to con- sumers online or at retailers such as Costco under the Nature's Lab brand. The company also provides contract manufacturing. Established in 2012, DrVita oper- ates from a $32 million facility that includes top-notch equipment. "It ulti- mately comes down to the best quality for a good value," said Wayne Gorsek, the company's chief executive officer. "To provide consumers with the supe- rior product quality, efficacy, and health benefits they're looking for, we need to invest in reliable and fast equipment. I have great success when I control the lab testing, formulation, manufacturing, and distribution." Capsules trump tablets Gorsek said he prefers to offer the company's products in capsules. "Capsules are much easier to swallow and don't require the other chemicals, fillers, and binders used for tablets, and their efficacy and customer satisfaction is just as high." As for filling the capsules, Gorsek said DrVita had special requirements for reliability, fill weights, finished- product quality, and production effi- ciency. Since Bosch Packaging Technology had already met all those requirements at an earlier Gorsek busi- ness—which became a top online nutraceutical company—Gorsek again selected Bosch to supply the capsule fillers at DrVita. "Today, we process more than 90 percent of our encapsu- lated brand products on the Bosch machines." They include four GKF Capsylon machines, three of them the 1505 model and one the 3005. The machines handle a wide range of products, from herbs and vitamins to pellets, powders, and granules. The large sizes of some fills are unique in the nutraceutical industry. That's a DrVita hallmark and explains, in part, the company's success: large fills that provide high amounts of nutrients. "Scientific evidence shows that many typical multivitamins have little benefit," Gorsek said. "The minimum requirement for the amount of active ingredients in a capsule to actually work may be 10 to 100 times higher than what is found in many supplements." He noted that the main active in "rock- hard tablets is calcium carbonate, the main ingredient in concrete." At the same time, consumers don't want to swallow too many capsules at once, which is another reason DrVita opted for high fill weights. Using cap- sules also eliminates what Gorsek called "toxic chemicals sometimes used in tablet production." The capsules DrVita uses are natural, vegetarian, and made in North America. Nearly 450,000 capsules per hour DrVita has the capacity to manufac- ture nearly 450,000 capsules per hour and can do so with minimal loss from over- or underfills. Each Capsylon 1505 is rated to produce 92,000 cap- Interior of one of four Bosch GKF Capsylon capsule filling machines at DrVita Las Vegas manufacturer finds capsule fillers a safe bet Adjustable dosing discs enable the company to vary the size of production runs. Tablets & Capsules January 2017 27