Manufacturing Capabilities

Columbia Nutritional operates in Vancouver, WA in a facility that is approximately 75,000 square feet.

Production starts with the customer placing an order. Once an order has been processed, a batch record will be created based on the bill of materials the customer needs. Purchasing will then begin purchasing materials to arrive at the facility. Quality then makes sure the materials meet specification before releasing the raw materials. Once all raw materials have arrived production can begin by sending out a batch ticket.

All batches are reviewed by quality at all stages to ensure all vitamins and supplements meet GMP and NSF requirements. Visual, physical, and measurable characteristics of the supplements are reviewed to ensure quality standards are met.

Weighing – Employees accurately weigh the required supplement and vitamin ingredients to a gram of accuracy while also ensuring all materials are evenly distributed using a screen and/or sieve as needed.  Weighing will not begin until quality performs their pre-start up inspection and all weighing is concluded with a quality review as well.

Blending – Once the supplement and vitamin materials have been weighed, the weighed vitamins and supplements will be blended in one of our blenders of varying sizes (to accommodate small and large customers) to create a homogonous blend. Blending will not begin until quality performs their pre-start up inspection and all blending is concluded with a quality review as well.

Encapsulation/tableting – The newly created vitamin and supplement blend will then be scheduled to be encapsulated on one of our encapsulation or tablet machines. Our variety of different machines, tooling and variable parts allow us to strategize run size and formula difficulty according to the customer’s needs. Encapsulation/tableting will not begin until quality performs their pre-start up inspection and all encapsulation/tableting is concluded with a quality review as well.

Packaging – The encapsulated or tableted vitamin and supplement product will then be scheduled to be packaged on one of packaging lines. Packaging components will be individually pulled for each specific run to ensure all customer demands are met to the desired bill of materials. Variable options include but are not limited to: Bottle size and color, desiccant size, type and quantity, volume fill type and quantity, lid color and size, inner seal styles, label height and width, box size and shape. Packaging will not begin until quality performs their pre-start up inspection and all packaging is concluded with a quality review as well.

Powder products – If the product is a powdered vitamin and supplement product, we have multiple filling machines that can fill a variety of sizes and shapes of containers. Primary container types are bottles, bags, and pouches. With weight variations down to 22 grams all the way to multiple kilograms. Powder processing will not begin until quality performs their pre-start up inspection and all powder processing is concluded with a quality review as well.

Warehouse – When materials are received paperwork will be reviewed to correctly identify and label all containers. Once properly labeled, the materials will be sampled following the N^2 +1 method in a GMP sampling room. Samples will be provided to the quality department for further review. Regular cycle counts ensure our inventory is stored properly and us correctly accounted for.

Shipping – Once the vitamin and supplement product has been created into a finished good. It will await testing from the quality department before it is shipped out. All our pallets are labeled to the customer’s standards as well as wrapped and labeled with external facing documents. This ensures when a customer receives their product it is easily identifiable. Custom pallet heights and shipping requirements are also met if the customer has specific needs.