USANA China Facility: Global Expansion

USANA Health Sciences currently operates in 20 markets throughout the world. USANA recently expanded even more by opening a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Beijing, China, through its subsidiary in mainland China, BabyCare, Ltd. This new facility will only manufacture products for Mainland China.

In October, this high-tech facility was granted all the manufacturing licenses needed and started to produce limited production a few months earlier than originally expected. After weeks of equipment installation, full production is expected by the end of 2016.

The $40 million, 350,000 square-foot building, is located in the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area. As the only full factory outside the U.S., the new facility consists of five buildings and has the capacity to produce at least 1.2 billion tablets each year, the same capacity as the home office.

China is one of USANA’s most important markets. The net sales in greater China have increased over 40% since 2014. Seeing the high demand and rapid growth in the China market, USANA started the construction on the new facility in 2014.

“There were many back orders and we wanted to increase the supply to satisfy the demands in China,” said Brent Neidig, Vice President of China Strategic Development.

Although the factory is built outside of the United States, USANA maintains the same high levels of quality standards. The factory was built according to requirements from the China government, the CFDA (China Food and Drug Administration) and the GB standard, the national standard of China. A high-tech air system is also installed to filter the air pollution in Beijing.

For two years, working with the China government was challenging, and USANA invested countless efforts to comply with the government’ s regulations and apply for the licenses required by different departments.

Bob Kupfer, Vice President of Global Operations at USANA , explained the challenges encountered. “We started to think we needed 6 licenses, we ended up needing 12, including a production license, a safety license, a selling license and an environmental permit, etc. “

USANA finally got all the licenses required except the environmental permit, which will be issued after the full production starts.

“The process is new to us. Actually, navigating between different departments is most challenging for us, because there are so many departments in China. But our team did a great job and submitted all the required papers, and we got all licenses two months earlier than anticipated,” said Kupfer.

Several leaders from the United States were also invited to visit the new facility on October.

“We are so excited about this new facility. The associates in China are lucky to have more opportunities to grow their business with the new facility,” a United States USANA distributor said, after visiting the new facility.

Without doubt, the facility will increase USANA’s capacity to meet growing demand and support growing sales in China, one of USANA’s largest markets. Beyond that, USANA has an even bigger vision.

“We are committed to the growth in China. We have built a plan to achieve double-digit growth in China, and this new facility is just part of our plan. “said Kupfer.

We also invited Bob Kupfer to talk about the new facility. Please watch the video below to know more about the efforts USANA has made to complete the project.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnYVf0toBEQ[/youtube]

*USANA Health Sciences, Inc. operates in mainland China through its wholly owned subsidiary BabyCare Ltd.

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