The Organic Marketplace
Currently, there are an estimated 90 million people in the United States that purchase and use organically certified products and the number is increasing every year. It is estimated in a study conducted by Packaged Facts called “The US market for Organic Foods and Beverages” that sales of organic products is increasing at an annual growth rate of between 17 and 22 percent. An average of 1,500 new organic products hit the market every year. By 2009, the market is projected to be in excess of $32 billion. The largest growth sector is Organic Personal Care products with a recent growth rate of 38% annually. In addition to dietary supplement and beverage ingredients, Draco manufactures a line of bioactive botanical ingredients specifically for the personal care markets, so we are poised to take advantage of this growth trend.

The move towards organic certification is also significant for both Draco and the herbal marketplace for other reasons. While Draco is headquartered in the United States, our herbal extract processing facility is in Shanghai, China. Deeply ingrained in Chinese tradition and culture, herbal practice, usage and business in China is enormous, dwarfing its equivalent in the US. For the most part, though, there is a very small percentage of the herbs in China that are cultivated under the umbrella of organic certification. It is only now just beginning to be an important attribute for herbal products there. Farmers are beginning to recognize the increased marketability and dollar value of organically certified crops, especially for export, so many farms are investigating, seeking and achieving certification. However, up until now, there have been no certified processors of herbal extracts in mainland China. Draco is proud to be the first and, at press time, the only organically certified processor of herbal extracts in China!

Draco Natural Products has been a leader and pioneer in the herbal products industry. In the face of much concern domestically over the legitimacy of herbal materials coming from China, especially from price slashing brokers with mysterious and dubious offerings, Draco continues to raise the bar on quality. We were the first, and still the only, herbal ingredient supplier to offer extracts that are truly both Full Spectrum and Standardized in the same product, a bridge unheard of in an industry polarized by holistic traditionalists vs. precision oriented scientists. We were one of the first and still one of the only American herbal suppliers with Chinese manufacturing that has successfully and effectively penetrated the US marketplace, having a thorough understanding of how to best meet the needs of American herbal products manufacturers. We were among the first in the industry to achieve ISO9001:2000 quality standards in our 125,000 square foot manufacturing plant. We were among the first to achieve Kosher certification as well, enabling us to offer a Kosher certified grape seed extract, for example, a process that requires removal of the seeds from the grapes within 24 hours of harvest to avoid potential fermentation.

We at Draco sincerely want American consumers to be able to experience and benefit from the vast richness of bounty of the herbs that grow in China, and the 5,000 years of traditional wisdom that has brought the herbal industry to its current position of prominence in China. In every way possible, we strive to produce ingredients that achieve that aim, while working to dispel the myth that herbal ingredients from processors in China are of unknown quality. We stand behind our quality, and organic certification is another step in our evolution toward bringing you the perfect balance of nature, science and tradition.

While we strive to support our customers with our products, we also strive to support the indigenous farmer in China. We are interested in providing an opportunity for more farms to convert to organically certified operations. As it is, many herbs that are grown in China are grown without the use of chemicals or pesticides, for purely economic reasons. Chemical soil additives are simply too expensive for many of the farmers there. Many of these farmers can be organically certified by simply going through the process of certification. By seeking and using organic sources, we at Draco support this conversion. Currently, we are seeking sources of organic crops. As we process a wide variety of raw materials, we are sourcing the full range of organic herbs as well as medicinal mushrooms, spices, fruits and vegetables. We are especially excited about the huge potential we all have in the industry for organically certified extracts of fruits and vegetables.