The company that supplies your powder ingredients decides a lot about your finished product: its consistency, its paperwork and when it arrives. Before you compare prices, it pays to know who actually made the material and what they can show you about it.
This guide covers what to check. It also explains how our two companies divide the work. Gembra Health is a distributor. Our sister company, Flatiron Food Factory, is the manufacturer. Same owners, same building in Loveland, Colorado.
Is your supplier a manufacturer, a distributor or a broker?
Ask first who made the powder. Many suppliers in this category are importers and brokers. They can forward a certificate, but they cannot tell you what happened to the material before it reached them, because they were not there.
A manufacturer runs the process and can answer for it. A distributor holds stock and handles supply. Buying from a distributor that sits beside its own manufacturer gives you both. Gembra distributes what Flatiron Food Factory makes, so process questions are answered by the people who ran the process.
What certifications should a powder ingredient manufacturer hold?
Look for current Good Manufacturing Practice, and ask which agency inspects the plant. GMP tells you production runs under documented quality systems. The inspection regime tells you what kind of raw material the plant starts from.
Flatiron Food Factory’s facility is GMP-certified and is a federally inspected USDA establishment. Most organ powder in this category is produced under FDA guidelines from pet-downgraded raw material. Our flagship tier starts with human-grade raw material under USDA inspection instead. Not every program needs USDA, and Flatiron also produces under FDA regulation when a filing calls for it. Our quality and sourcing page explains the difference.
What testing and documents should come with each order?
Ask what ships with the order, not what is available if you ask. A certificate of analysis, lab results and a specification sheet ship with every order we send.
The certificate covers microbial testing, heavy metals screening and water activity. The lab results are the reports behind it. Anything else your file needs, such as allergen statements or country-of-origin records, is available on request.
Nutritional analysis is worth asking about carefully. It depends on your finished formulation rather than the raw lot, so we assist with it rather than supply it.
Milling to your mesh and density spec
A powder that changes density from lot to lot will not fill a capsule the same way twice. Ask whether the supplier mills in house and who sets the spec.
Many freeze dryers have no milling capability and send dried material to a separate company to mill. That hand-off is where lot-to-lot drift starts. Flatiron runs a hammer mill and a cryogenic mill with a milling scientist on staff, so density and mesh are set to your formulation and held batch to batch. High-fat material such as heart usually needs the cryogenic mill to reach a fine mesh at all. Our manufacturing page walks through the full process.
What lead time and minimum order should you expect?
Get both in writing at quote, and ask whether the lead time you are given is for stocked material or a new run.
Our minimum order is 10 kg per ingredient. Material we hold in stock ships in 7 to 10 business days. A custom run is 6 to 8 weeks. The shorter figure applies only to material already on the shelf, so share your volume projections early if you will need a custom run.
Packaging and the steps after milling
Ask what happens after the powder is made. Some buyers only need bulk material. Others need packaging, lot coding and a route to encapsulation.
Flatiron handles packaging from bulk to retail-ready, with lot coding and labeling, in house for some customers. Encapsulation, pouching and work past that scale go to trusted partners that Flatiron introduces or manages. If you need material made to your formulation, or want your own material freeze-dried, that is a custom run or a tolling job through Flatiron.
A short checklist
- Who made the material, and can they answer process questions directly?
- Is the plant GMP-certified, and which agency inspects it?
- Which documents ship with every order?
- Can the supplier set and hold your density and mesh spec?
- Which origin and which material tier is this lot?
- What is the lead time for stocked material, and for a custom run?
Talk to us about your ingredient
Tell us the ingredient, the volume and the spec you formulate to. Request a quote and we will come back within 12 to 24 hours with pricing, origin availability and lead time. Orders start at 10 kg per ingredient.