China is often called the “world’s workshop,” because of the high percentage of goods and raw materials manufactured there. Their goods are inexpensive and their level of service is highly efficient. And you may be surprised to learn that the majority of nutritional supplements start their lives in a Chinese factory, whether it’s amino acids or tribulus, chances are, it’s coming from China.
So why has Need to Build Muscle made the decision to limit our purchases from the country?
The unfortunate truth is that Chinese products have made headlines in recent years, due to some awful incidents, ranging from poisonous cough syrup (it contained antifreeze) to children’s toys that contained too much lead. This is unacceptable to us, and it should be unacceptable to you. Not all Chinese suppliers are bad, and many are excellent, but we feel that if tribulus comes from Bulgaria, then
we’ll simply purchase it from Bulgaria. Our Fadogia comes straight from Africa, as does our Bulbine. This way, we know we’re getting it straight from the source.
You may have noticed that we sometimes run out of stock on items like HCGenerate.
Here’s why: We import our Fadogia directly from Africa. But in the area where it’s grown, there are two rainy seasons per year, the first from April to July and a second from September to November. Because of this, the ideal time to harvest the herb is very early in the year.
So, early in the year, we make our prediction for how much we’ll need, and base our orders on that figure. But HCGenerate is very popular, and if we outsell our predictions (*as we often do), then we need to go back and order more, regardless of the season. Unfortunately, a funny thing happens when there’s a lot of rain: it takes much longer to get our hands on herbs. It takes the workers longer to harvest the herb, and once it’s harvested, it needs to be dried, before it can be sanitized and eventually turned into a powder. All of that takes time.
Sure, we could just order some cheap Chinese Fadogia, but that’s not how we do business.
You see, we remember the days when the demand for Hoodia greatly outdistanced the ability of African suppliers to grow the herb. So nutritional companies began looking towards China, because of their efficiency in supplying herbal products. And unfortunately, what happened was Chinese prickly pear began getting substituted for hoodia, because they’re both cactuses and they look identical once you grind them into a powder. But hoodia cuts your appetite and prickly pear doesn’t – so to keep nutritional companies (and customers) from noticing the difference, some Chinese suppliers decided to spike their fake-hoodia with prescription appetite suppressants.
And to be honest, we like sourcing our herbs from local farmers in their country of origin, not huge factories that produce tribulus in one room and car parts in another.
So sometimes we’re out of stock on certain items, but that’s because we keep our standards very high – which results in you getting the highest quality product possible.
And yes, of course we use Chinese suppliers for some of our ingredients (although everything is eventually manufactured in the USA) – but we’ve researched and cultivated relationships with the largest and most reputable supply houses in China, and we double check everything to make sure When you order from us, you know that we spent our time sourcing the finest raw ingredients in the world, and you can be confidant that what it says on the bottle, is exactly what’s in the product.
