Betsy Puff, Natural Factors Nutritional Products Ltd. Coquitlam, B.C.

Constant change, innovation, and discovery challenge any business wanting to remain a leader. It’s especially demanding when you’re one of the nation’s top manufacturers of nutritional supplements, a market rife with pretenders and fly-by-night Internet start-ups.

The Natural Factors brand is flourishing because they eschew complacency, acknowledging a strict allegiance to researching and developing new natural supplements.

The Coquitlam-based company has introduced 14 new products to the market in the past eight months and offers more than 300 different formulas exclusively sold at natural health stores across the continent.

“Research and development is key to our growth,” explains Natural Factors’ Key Account Manager (National) Betsy Puff. “We’re able to be very competitive in the marketplace and are always coming up with new formulas and products.”

An advantage Natural Factors has is a team of medical doctors, naturopathic physicians, researchers, and herbalists who contribute their expertise.

The science starts with an analysis of the health needs expressed by Natural Factors’ customers. Consultation takes place with the product development and marketing team and the laboratory specialists who work to blueprint ideas into products.

Trust plays a big part in success. So does having been in business for more than 50 years. Customers know the label on the supplements means that they work and that a lot of the money Natural Factors makes goes right back into R&D.

“If there’s a new ingredient or a raw material, Natural Factors is going to be the first company to be aware of that,” says Puff. “We’re definitely the frontrunners in research in this industry in Canada.”

The family-owned business employs more than 800 staff at its head office and state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Coquitlam, a second manufacturing plant in the hamlet of Winfield in the Okanagan, and extensive organic herb farms. They also operate offices in Ontario and Washington State.

The farming side of Natural Factors is currently expanding its acreage and variety of certified organic crops. No chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, or pesticides ever reach Factor Farms. Even the seed and plant sources are organic.

Asked about their top selling formulas, Puff reaveals that it’s PGX Daily Ultra Matrix, a softgel capsule that will help you lose weight safely and gradually, even if you’re not ready to make other positive diet and lifestyle changes. Taking PGX with food reduces the glycemic index of a meal by up to 50 per cent, balancing blood sugar levels.

“It means you’re feeling fuller faster so you’re not going to eat as much,” says Puff. “You lose your cravings for sugar and carbohydrates as your blood sugar balances.”

Puff is all too aware of kids hooked on junk food, escalating obesity levels, and the rise of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

While Natural Factors does make formulas for controlling ADHD (specifically the brain-critical nutrients in Learning Factors Smoothie Mix and the essential fatty acid-rich School-Aid), eating healthily is as critical as the supplements you add.

“Diet is huge and we’re always referring to sugar. White sugar is at the top of the list for kids as a product to stay away from.”

Kids starting the day with a bowl of sugar-coated cereal get a burst of quick energy, which soon turns into a deep, dark low.

“They crash around 10 o’clock in the morning.”

Puff also cautions against eating dairy or meat that’s been grain-fed. She says the nutritional values are much lower than those that come from grass-fed animals.

“If an animal eats grass they make Vitamin K2 and give that back to us. This is a key nutrient we’re missing in our diets right now. That’s why we should eat organic meat and dairy products.”

It all plays a role in why eight to 15 per cent of school age children have ADHD, says Puff.

“They may be eating a fairly good diet, but the animal products they eat aren’t eating a good diet.”