Almost immediately customers started calling NOW and asking for Kelp (natural source of iodine) and Potassium Iodide, which is often used during radiation poisoning. While we sold out of Kelp quickly, we determined to supply as much Potassium Iodide as possible. We had never produced or sold Potassium Iodide before, but with the emergency scare in full force, all departments at NOW worked together to quickly research, test, purchase, manufacture and bottle 75,000 bottles within just two weeks of the nuclear accident. This amazing effort helped soothe the worries of thousands of customers and was very rewarding to those who helped make this happen so quickly. Interestingly, an Amazon.com buyer called us during this time and said that Jeff Bezos, famed CEO of Amazon, wanted to quickly buy a lot of Potassium Iodide tablets and donate it to Japan. Price wasn’t really a consideration, but we were unable to produce enough bottles fast enough and so we missed out on that opportunity. EXPANSION IN NEVADA AGAIN By December 2010, it became apparent that NOW would need to expand production facilities again in order to keep up with ongoing double-digit growth. This time we determined to expand our Sparks, Nevada distribution center to a large manufacturing and distribution plant. The decision to move away from our home in Illinois was fairly simple. We needed to diversify in case of a natural disaster or some other work stoppage. The state of Illinois is relatively unfriendly to businesses, in huge debt, and a recent 50% state tax increase was the final straw. Because NOW already had a second home in Nevada, it made sense to expand in that area and enjoy the benefits of location, climate, low taxes and friendly government. NOW purchased land in Sparks and began to build a 165,000 sq. ft. building in 2011. By spring 2012, our distribution center relocated and construction continued for full-scale manufacturing and lab testing. In addition to producing tablets and capsules, the Sparks plant would be our first time to manufacture the softgel form of vitamins. It takes very sophisticated pharmaceutical equipment to make softgels, and it’s quite interesting to watch. It also takes experienced technical people to run the lines. Compared to making dry capsules, softgels require some art as well as science and are much more difficult to master. NOW plans to add more softgel lines in future years, which will help our supply chain and overall quality control. The Sparks plant mirrors our Illinois facility in many ways including labs. We duplicated most of our Illinois lab equipment and now operate two ultra-modern, full-scale laboratories. Combined, NOW has 24 HPTLCs (High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography) testing units, which is an incredibly large number. NOW also has four GCs (Gas Chromatography for fatty acid analysis), three ICPMS machines to test for minerals and heavy metals, two SOLERIS systems, one PPSO to test for irradiation and much more. Our labs conducted 16,000 separate analyses per month in 2009-2013 117
