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Personal Care in Bulk: Getting You Hand Sanitizer Capacity

Personal Care in Bulk: Getting You Hand Sanitizer Capacity

by | Jul 2, 2020 | Hand Sanitizer

No less than 20,000 gallons a day in productive capacity is anticipated to come online beginning mid-August 2020.

Several new approaches to processing hand sanitizer in high volume are being engineered by BPI Labs. These approaches will bring the cost of sanitizer production down while significantly increasing the volume of sanitizer production available to our customers.

Bringing mass hand sanitizer manufacturing to you has us making many changes to our infrastructure.  For example, we are building a tank farm to house and receive raw materials from tankers, and our first tank arrived this week.  After sanitizer is completed in bulk, newly installed piping will transport the hand sanitizer directly to our filling machinery.  New high-speed machinery has already been purchased and more is being sourced, but the manufacturers we’ve been corresponding with tell us new machinery may not be available for up to a year.  We were able to purchase some excellent machines even though the market supply of equipment is drying up.

 

Available packaging for sanitizer products

Bottling

For bottling production, BPI Labs already has capacity to produce hundreds of thousands of bottled hand sanitizer if a source for bottles can be found. (See our blog on why tubes might be a better packaging solution than bottles.) New, high-speed, rotary bottling machinery has been purchased that will push our bottling capacity into millions of bottled units monthly.  Additional explosion proofing is being installed, and the machinery should come online in the next few months.

Tubes

We purchased a new and custom engineered Norden tube machine designed specifically to fill hand sanitizer without risk of fire or damage.  Formulations for hand sanitizer contain upwards of 80% ethanol, and this can make for an explosive situation when using a heating element to seal a tube.  Our understanding is that no other manufacturer has had any safety measures added to their tube machine designs until now. 

Packets

Finally, BPI Labs already has a state-of-the-art packet/sachet filling machine capable of filling one-time use hand sanitizer packets, which may be perfect for travel and medical industries or for sampling in new markets.  This machine is capable of filling 84,000 packets a day in duplex mode.  You should consider tacking on packets to an order of hand sanitizer bottled or tubed since you will be able to meet MOQ’s more easily and use these packets to introduce your products into new markets.  You can see some of our packet options here.

Updated Conclusion

BPI Labs has mass hand sanitizer product now available. Multiple packaging options and fragrances are being offered to our customers. Contact us to learn about how you can have hand sanitizer manufactured for your brand at BPI Labs.

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You Need Hand Sanitizer in Tubes

You Need Hand Sanitizer in Tubes

by | Jun 14, 2020 | Hand Sanitizer

Tubes are a ready, domestic, and continuous source of packaging that could be ideal for your hand sanitizer.

Sources for hand sanitizer packaging have been difficult to locate. The remaining sources of packaging have dubious quality controls, and above average prices and lead times. Tubes, however, have remained widely available, cost-effective, and the sources reliable.

 Some customers approaching BPI Labs for hand sanitizer assume that BPI Labs has a ready source of bottles.  While we have found some sources in China and India, we are relying more on our customers to have a source for bottles. This is why we believe our customers should consider tubes instead if they need new sources of packaging.

BPI Labs has been in discussions with domestic tube suppliers regarding lead times, availability, and pricing. The encouraging news is that tube suppliers are not seeing bottlenecks in their ability to provide a continuous supply of tubes in a 6 – 8 week lead time at prices competitive with bottles. Moreover, tubes provide many advantages that bottles do not, and we can break these down into two categories: manufacturing convenience and customer utility.

Manufacturing Convenience:
  • The first benefit has already been stated, which is the 6 – 8 week lead time for high volumes of economical packaging sourced domestically.
  • Caps come pre-installed on tubes, which cuts down on manufacturing costs, lead times, and reduces the logistical burden of sourcing, validating compatibility, and shipping caps.
  • Tubes come pre-printed with labels and will not need to be applied to the container during manufacturing, which provides the same benefits as caps. Additionally, printed tubes tend to have a more consistent and appealing aesthetic.
  • Tubes can come with safety/security seals pre-installed. These seals are applied by induction, which use heat to apply the seal to the container. It would be difficult and dangerous to apply induction seals to bottles because sanitizer has a high concentration of flammable and volatile alcohol.  We are not aware of any other seal-type that works well with hand sanitizer.
Benefits a brand owner will see:
  1. Tubes have a wide range of orifice sizes available for you to choose from, and choosing the right orifice size will help the user apply a reasonable amount of hand sanitizer every time.
  2. In hot conditions the volatile alcohol in bottles will evaporate and create pressure in the container. If the container is set on its side and then opened again, sanitizer will sometimes expel in an uncontrolled fashion and create a mess. Inflexible bottles will tend to create more pressure and more mess, but the highly flexible tube is less likely to create a large mess or a mess at all.
  3. Consumers will like how easily the tube can be squeezed, unlike a plastic bottle.
  4. Tubes may fit personal carriers, like purses and backpacks more readily than a bottle.

Conclusion

BPI Labs anticipates that sourcing bottles for hand sanitizer will be difficult in the coming months. However, we will have tube production available beginning the third quarter of 2020 with a new Norden tubing machine designed to safely and rapidly produce hand sanitizer in tubes.

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New Cosmetic: Hand Sanitizer Expansion 2020

New Cosmetic: Hand Sanitizer Expansion 2020

by | Jun 14, 2020 | Hand Sanitizer

Update – Mass Hand Sanitizer Now Available

Mass Hand Sanitizer is available now for bulk and packaged filled product.  Multiple fragrances and multiple packaging options available.  See more information here!

BPI Labs is announcing new, mass hand sanitizer production by end of summer 2020.

Manufacturing is expanding to accommodate 20,000 gallons per day of hand sanitizer production with the ability to produce millions of units of packaged sanitizer every month.

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You Need Hand Sanitizer in Tubes

Your Lead Times for Personal Care Products

by | Oct 29, 2018 | Manufacturing

Introduction

BPI Labs has created lead times for the compounding and the filling of personal care product that will get your private label brand onto the shelf in a matter of weeks. Discover BPI Lab’s lead times for the three private label manufacturing methods to find the method that will suit your needs.

 

You will read the following in this post:
  • The variety of production modes (bulk, not-turnkey, turnkey)
  • The lead times for each mode
  • Tips for improving lead times
Manufacturing Modes

BPI Labs has three manufacturing modes and each have their own lead-time.

Turnkey Manufacturing

This manufacturing mode has BPI Labs purchasing your packaging, filling your product, and retaining the leftovers in its warehouse.  Our service objective is to have our customer’s product to them in 6 – 8 weeks from the time that our customer submits their purchase order.  This provides BPI Labs with multiple weeks to receive materials and a few weeks to fill and perform quality assurance.

Not-Turnkey Manufacturing

This manufacturing mode has BPI Labs purchasing ingredients and standing by to receive the packaging materials after our customer orders them.  Our lead time here is also 6 – 8 weeks, but with an important distinction: the lead time begins after BPI Labs receives all the packaging for a job.

Bulk Manufacturing

Bulk manufacturing has BPI Labs filling cosmetic product into bulk containers, which include 5 gal. buckets, 55 gal. barrels, and 350 gal. totes.  The manufacturing lead time is typically shorter: 4 – 8 weeks.

Improving Lead Times

Our lead time guarantee only works under ideal circumstances.  Obviously, if our customer is not using turnkey manufacturing but would still like their product filled by BPI Labs, it becomes crucial that packaging arrive quickly in order to begin the 6 – 8 week lead time.  Whenever our customer’s private label product calls for materials that might require significant delay, like glass bottles on boat from Italy, then the 6 – 8 week lead time won’t be met, even with turnkey manufacturing.  Finally, BPI Labs sets up prepayment terms with its customers, and not meeting those terms will delay the lead time until those terms are met.

Here are a few more tips for improving lead times:

  • Lead times will be improved by choosing prepayment terms that are simpler and less likely to be forgotten.
  • Using blanket purchase orders that cover multiple orders throughout the year enables BPI Labs to have packaging and ingredient material suppliers stock material nearby.
  • Also using BPI Labs’ preferred suppliers allows our customers to benefit from a reliable relationship and purchase from a supplier who is usually closer to BPI Labs geographically, consequently decreasing shipping times.

Conclusion

BPI Labs’ goal is manufacture your product in 6 – 8 weeks.  However, your lead time depends on the manufacturing mode you choose and any issues in sourcing materials for you product.  Improving lead times is possible by working with a project manager at BPI Labs to assess your supply chain and develop a plan to get your product on your schedule.

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Turnkey Personal Care Manufacturing Has Great Value

Turnkey Personal Care Manufacturing Has Great Value

by | Oct 28, 2018 | Manufacturing

Introduction

Turnkey manufacturing is an industry term that describes the ability for a customer to sign a purchase order and turn over all aspects of the supply chain management to their manufacturer.  At BPI Labs, we do turnkey manufacturing for a few of our customers.  This option isn’t for everyone, but it might be for you.  Read on to learn more.

What you will read in this post:
  • The benefits of turnkey manufacturing
  • How we turn your product turnkey
  • The turnkey options
  • Who is right for turnkey

The work that turnkey manufacturing saves you:

When our clients do not use turnkey manufacturing then they must perform all the following things to manufacture their product at BPI Labs.  They will need to find suppliers of packaging, request samples of product, negotiate prices, submit packaging samples to BPI Labs for testing, perform their own quality checks, order their packaging for an upcoming job and pay the invoice, track their packaging and update BPI Labs about its status. The work does not end here, however.

After the job is finished, they will need to receive all the left-over packaging back to their warehouse for storage after we finish a job.  (Although that last part can be mitigated with a warehousing agreement with BPI Labs.)  If any packaging arrives at BPI Labs damaged or as a wrong item, then our customer must take the claim up with the packaging supplier and reorder.  Any mistake in managing this supply chain often results in increased shipping charges for expedited shipping and sometimes delays the job until BPI Labs can reschedule a manufacturing date.  This is a general list of all the work turnkey manufacturing saves you.

How BPI Labs does turnkey manufacturing

Turnkey manufacturing by BPI Labs eliminates most, if not all, of the above work.  We will find packaging suppliers with whom we trust, negotiate prices, request samples, purchase packaging for upcoming jobs and pay the invoice, and store leftover packaging in our warehouse.  The relief your company may feel on its cash flow might be enough reason to consider turnkey packaging.  But your warehouse will feel slimmer and more organized because you won’t need to store leftover packaging and you won’t need to deal with lost or missing inventory.  The only thing turnkey manufacturing by BPI Labs does not do is choose your packaging for you.  That only makes sense since your product’s packaging represents your brand, not BPI Labs’ brand.

The only thing turnkey manufacturing by BPI Labs does not do is choose your packaging for you.

How we make your job turnkey:

When BPI Labs feels that a customer is ready to have their job made turnkey, we’ll send out samples of their chosen packaging to our suppliers for a matching component.  It is not unusual for our suppliers to locate the originating manufacturer and offer a counter-offer to supply the packaging.  BPI Labs will then leverage its own volume discounts and negotiate the lowest price possible from suppliers with competing offers.  Sometimes this results in turnkey manufacturing being cheaper even with BPI Labs’ turnkey fees.

It is notable that most turnkey jobs begin as a hybrid of turnkey and not-turnkey.  This hybrid situation happens when BPI Labs is responsible for sourcing some of the packaging for a job.  This usually happens during a transitional phase, but sometimes our customers never fully transition into a completely turnkey manufacturing relationship and that’s okay too.

Why doesn’t everyone use turnkey?

Turnkey is not for everybody.  If our customer is able to source packaging for significantly less than BPI Labs, then it may make sense for them to manage the supply chain.  BPI Labs does charge 20% on the landed cost of packaging for its turnkey service, and customers who must have the lowest price possible will not want to pay the turnkey fee.  Also, having control of the supply chain may appeal to certain businesses where they feel they have a core competency in that area.  Finally, turning a product into a turnkey job does require some labor and might delay the introduction of a new product into a market.  This makes turnkey a better option for products that have already seen a successful introduction.

Conclusion

Turnkey manufacturing offers significant advantages over the more hands-on approach some of our customers take.  First, turnkey is more cost-effective for customers who are not in a good position to perform all the manufacturing logistics and are not doing enough volume to benefit from discounts.  Second, turnkey absolves you of the risk of delay due to mismanagement of the supply chain and the burden of holding left-over packaging.  Third, turnkey lets BPI Labs perform more of the manufacturing work it knows so well, and it leaves your company free to focus on its markets, brands, customers, and growth.

Turnkey might not be a great option if you’re highly price sensitive with a competency in supply chain management or if you are introducing a new product into the market and there are many factors of your product still in flux.  However, after all the factors of your product have congealed, it may be time to begin looking at turnkey.   If you think turnkey is an option you would like to explore then please contact your project manager at BPI Labs today to discuss the possibilities.

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