Sourcing Raw Materials

Identifying and qualifying raw material suppliers — matching specifications, finding alternative sources when supply chains tighten, and technically evaluating equivalents from different vendors. This typically saves time during reformulations, supplier switches forced by cost or regulatory pressure, or scale-up from lab to first commercial batch.

What are your priorities in your sourcing needs?

Do you need quality above all? Reliable delivery rain or shine? Or just the cheapest product you can possibly get because every bit of margin gained reduces your risk of entering a market at scale?

• Small scale manufacturing often faces an unexpected issue: Here you have pages upon pages of resources from big chemical manufacturers advertising their prime active ingredients with miraculous properties, but when you try to acquire said ingredients, you are hit with a MOQ of 1 MT for a product of which you need 1% in a small scale formulation.
• Production at scale risks sitting on product nearing the end of its shelf-life, making it harder and harder to meet sales expectations.
• Sourcing from abroad (and let’s be clear, we’re talking about China and India) offers a myriad of possibilities, with often incalculable risks.

Background photo by thom masat on Unsplash