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The Seeds Journey

Natural Factors
Man farming

Imagine you’re at your favourite local health food store in the supplement aisle. Your spouse has come down with a cold,and you know the exact natural remedy they need. You leave the store with a bottle of Echinacea Tincture in hand, knowing that it will help your loved ones on their journey to feeling better. The product in your hand has also been on a journey to get to you, and we were there for every single step of it.

It Starts with a Seed

Let’s start at the beginning. Long before that Echinacea Tincture is placed on that shelf, its journey begins with a carefully selected seed.

Having our own certified organic farmland gives us the unique ability to grow and harvest some of our own raw materials. Did you know that all crops on our farms are grown from organic, non-GMO, non-hybridized, true species seeds sourced from our own research gardens or seed bank? Well, in a few cases, we also partner with our trusted seed houses. Before they are planted, all these seeds are subject to rigorous analytical and genetic testing to ensure they continue to meet our high standards.

Our crops are not harvested on a schedule; rather, they are monitored closely and tested to ensure photoactive levels throughout their growing season. These levels help our farmers decide when they should be harvested, ensuring that only plants at their peak potency make their way into the final product.

“Our organic farmland is fully segregated from industry. We are not in a polluted area. There is no migration of heavy metals or any other dangerous chemicals threatening our farm.”

– Jan Slama, Research Scientist at Factors Farms 

We are unable to source some materials from our farm, and this is where a carefully curated list of criteria comes into play. We only source materials that meet our high standards, and to ensure that what we source meets these standards, all materials that come from our trusted providers are subject to complex and rigorous analytical testing for pesticides, heavy metals, adulterants, and many other standardized tests, including genetic and non-GMO integrity testing, to verify all components. We are proud to say that we have mandated for many years that any materials we source must be non-GMO.

From Seed to Bottle 

The next step in the journey is getting our products from raw materials to their final pill, capsule, or liquid form. As you can tell, we are obsessed with quality and passionate about doing things right, and we believe that sometimes doing things right means doing them yourself. This is why we have brought as many of these processes as possible in house.

We are one of the only nutritional companies to have our own extraction, encapsulation, and production facilities with capabilities that include tableting, liquid and powder extraction, multi-ingredient aqueous granulations, and liquid-filling lines. We are also the only nutraceutical brand to have our own softgel encapsulation facility. These unique aspects of our manufacturing give us unparalleled control over every product we produce.

Ending the Journey on Your Shelf 

As our products come to the end of their journey in our facilities and get ready to be delivered to natural health food stores, we like to give them one last seal of approval. In addition to the rigorous in-house and third-party testing we perform on our seeds and raw materials, once the product is complete it is again tested for psychoactive levels, biochemistry, and microbiology, as well as for taste, colour, and odour. Only when all these results are within our standards are these finished products allowed to be bottled and sent out into the world.

When you buy Natural Factors products, you are trusting us with your health, and that is not a trust we take lightly. From seed to shelf, Natural Factors is dedicated to utilizing the highest standards of sourcing, testing, and encapsulating to ensure the final step on our products’ journey is improving your health. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Natural Factors
We are passionate and knowledgeable about a wide range of natural health topics.
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