Comment · Fri, February 28, 2020
QUESTION: ND's Ashwagandha Supply
Original post in this thread
AmensiacKidA · 7 points
Hi there,
I've been a follower of Nootropics Depot and just recently made my first purchase. I have a small query and was hoping to get it clarified here.
Some background: I'm from India, and I've been meaning to try Ashwagandha for the longest time. I naturally tried finding some local brands that do sufficient testing of their products (I'm paranoid about heavy metal toxicity, there's been multiple cases of industries polluting/selling contaminated supplies with the Gov turning a blind eye). I did find brands like Organic India that purports that they test for heavy metals but I couldn't get access to their test results and I'm generally wary of this, considering how even in the west, the supplement industry is highly unregulated. I came across recommendations for ND and eventually placed my order.
Query: I saw a post in Reddit recently (I'm unable to find this, sorry... but probably in Nootropics or on this sub) where the OP was asking about why China is the epicentre for production for certain chemicals. /u/MisterYouAreSoDumb 's response was about how China's vertically integrated system lets them dominate in this field. The response also included this: ND sources their…
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
Ohh no, we do NOT use Indian labs for QC of batches. They lie all the time, too. All of our analytical testing happens at our lab here in Tempe Arizona, or at domestic ISO certified labs here in the US. We also don't just accept results from these labs. We get packets of data and validations from them on the results, and even have visited their facilities and audited their lab to make sure things are being done right. I don't trust anyone anymore. You guys ultimately put your trust in me, so I make sure I am positive things are being done correctly. I don't just want to get a number back from a lab to give us plausible deniability. I want to make sure things are right, and fully understand how the science is confirming that.
For future India plans I was referring to production. This includes some synthesis, but is mainly focused around the extracts of Ayurvedic botanicals. We are trying to go direct to the source on things these days. So for Ayurvedic things, that's India. For fish oil that's Norway and Argentina. We are even going direct to northern Finland on a new thing we are working on, which will have GPS confirmation of where it was harvested! That's kind of cool! Most companies buy through middle men suppliers. That's because going direct to the source on a lot of things requires too high of minimum order quantities to do. Now that we have grown enough, we have the flexibility to start going direct more often. We are even getting some equipment in to start doing our own R&D batches of extracts, and potentially starting some of our own limited grow operations on certain things. That's the ultimate goal, right? Start to finish. We grow, harvest, extract, formulate, manufacture, test, then sell to consumers. Obviously that will only be for certain things. No way are we going to buy our own boats and go out trawling for krill in the arctic. LOL. However, there are areas that we can consider doing our own growing. I am pretty excited about it, actually!