Bespoke herbal supplement manufacturing

Private label herbal supplements, identity tested lot by lot

Turmeric and curcumin, adaptogen blends with rhodiola, red ginseng and ashwagandha, maca, modern Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) tonics, shilajit, jamu-style blends and bitters: these are the private label herbal supplements and custom botanical formulas we develop and make for premium wellness brands in our Leicester facility. We make them as capsules, tablets, powders and stick packs, tinctures, drops and shots, and gummies. Every botanical lot is identity tested against an authenticated reference before it reaches production, and every batch is tested by accredited partner laboratories, with a certificate of analysis for your brand.

Private label herbal supplements often start as a stock formula with a new label. A bespoke formula gives your brand a specification it controls: species, plant part, extract ratio, marker content and origin, with a documented legal position in every market. Your formula is yours. Research and development is a paid stage that can be included with an order of the right size.

Turmeric, adaptogens, jamu and bitters: six herbal product types

Brands are building six product types.

• Turmeric and curcumin. Capsules, gummies and latte powders, often in delivery forms designed for absorption.
• Adaptogen blends. Rhodiola, red ginseng and ashwagandha, beside B vitamins or magnesium that carry authorised claims.
• Roots and extracts from the Andes and Asia. Maca and, for the US market, tongkat ali and turkesterone.
• Modern Ayurveda and TCM tonics. Traditional formulas rebuilt from the plant parts each target market allows. Shilajit, a mineral-rich resin used in Ayurveda, is covered below.
• Jamu-style and Thai herbal drinks. Jamu is the Indonesian turmeric, ginger and tamarind drink, and in 2023 Thailand named three priority herbs for export, among them turmeric (NutraIngredients, November 2025).
• Bitters. Herbal drops and shots taken around meals, sold on taste and tradition.

US retail sales of herbal supplements rose 5.4% in 2024 to a record, with ashwagandha up 13.8% in the mainstream channel and rhodiola 30.4% in the natural channel, according to the American Botanical Council's Herb Market Report, as NutraIngredients reported in September 2025.

Species, part, extract and marker for every botanical

We specify every botanical by species, part, extract and marker, and screen it in-house before formulation against the EU novel food catalogue, the GB position and national plant lists. Every status below is as of October 2026. Status follows the part and the preparation: gotu kola leaves are not novel, but an extract standardised to 40% triterpenes is, as NutraIngredients reported in January 2026. See all our supplement categories.

Turmeric and curcumin

Turmeric is the rhizome of Curcuma longa, and its coloured curcuminoids are sold as curcumin, an authorised food colour (E 100) with an acceptable daily intake of 3 mg per kg of body weight a day (EFSA, 2010). Curcumin is poorly absorbed, so formulation decides how much reaches the blood: in a small crossover study, a form with a hydrophilic carrier showed 45.9 times the absorption of a standard curcumin mixture, dose for dose (Jäger and colleagues, Nutrition Journal, 2014). Concentrated and modified forms need their own check, because one curcumin extract complex has been found novel at least in foods other than food supplements, so we confirm the status of each concentrated form for every market before it enters a formula.

Maca

Maca (Lepidium meyenii) is an Andean root of the cabbage family, listed as not novel in the Commission's catalogue (Finnish Food Authority, 2026). Taken at gram doses, it suits powders and stick packs; we specify it by origin, root colour and processing: raw, gelatinised or extracted at a declared ratio.

Tongkat ali and turkesterone

Tongkat ali, the root of Eurycoma longifolia from South-East Asia, is an unauthorised novel food in the UK and the EU, so it cannot be sold there. In the US, herbs are dietary ingredients, and one not marketed there before 15 October 1994 needs a new dietary ingredient notification before launch. We make tongkat ali and turkesterone (Ajuga turkestanica) products for US programmes only, after a regulatory review of each programme under UK export rules, with a dietary ingredient file for each, export-only labels and stock kept apart from UK and EU orders. The panel shows tongkat ali's status by market.

Red ginseng and rhodiola

Red ginseng is Panax ginseng root, steamed and dried. The Commission's novel food catalogue lists Panax ginseng as not novel in food and Rhodiola rosea root as not novel in food supplements. We specify red ginseng by named ginsenosides measured by HPLC, and rhodiola by rosavins, which mark Rhodiola rosea, and salidroside, which related substitute species also contain.

Ayurvedic and TCM tonics

Traditional use in India or China does not make a plant a food in the UK or the EU: a food is novel if it was not used for human consumption to a significant degree there before 15 May 1997. A traditional food from a third country can be notified instead, on at least 25 years of continued use in the customary diet of a significant number of people there. So we build Ayurvedic and TCM tonics from documented parts: Japanese pagoda tree flowers are not novel in food supplements, while the whole greater celandine plant is novel and unauthorised (NutraIngredients, January 2026).

Shilajit, ashwagandha, saffron and black seed

Shilajit, or mumijo, is a complex product of organic and mineral origin. In the UK and the EU it is not novel in food supplements but is a novel food in an ordinary food or drink, so we make it only as food supplements. Shilajit can carry heavy metals, so every batch gets a metals panel. Ashwagandha, specified by its withanolides, has its home in our sleep and stress range. Saffron, specified by crocins and safranal, has its page on saffron supplement manufacturing, and Nigella sativa seed oil on black seed oil supplement manufacturing.

Supply and origin

Supply is concentrated: SupplySide Supplement Journal described China in April 2025 as "a primary, and sometimes exclusive, source of botanical ingredients". We record the origin of every botanical lot and qualify a second source for critical botanicals during development, which keeps a product on shelf when a harvest or a trade route fails.

Plant claims are on hold, so nutrients carry the label

Evidence for herbs is uneven, and claims law sets the limit. The European Medicines Agency's ginseng and rhodiola monographs rest on traditional use, not clinical study results, and apply to medicines, not foods. As of October 2026, health claims for plants remain on hold in Great Britain and the EU, so none is authorised, and we build every product's claims on nutrients from the GB and EU registers.

In the UK, our herbal food supplements stay on the food side of the line between food and medicine: no medicinal presentation, and none of the indications carried by registered traditional herbal medicines, such as some rhodiola, ginseng, artichoke leaf and dandelion root products. Start your project with your plants and markets, and we build the specification and the claims plan together.

Capsules for bitter extracts, powders for maca, drops for bitters

The format follows the dose and the taste: standardised extracts dose in milligrams, whole-herb powders such as maca in grams.

• Capsules and tablets carry bitter extracts and dense blends with no taste work; see capsule and tablet manufacturing.
• Powders and stick packs carry maca, turmeric lattes and jamu-style blends; see powder supplement manufacturing.
• Liquids cover tinctures, bitters drops and shots, where botanicals taste at full strength; see liquid supplement manufacturing.
• Gummies suit modest extract doses with flavour work, and get an active assay on every batch as standard.

We make every format in our Leicester facility, which is ISO 9001, HACCP and GMP certified by BSI, and FDA registered; capsules, gummies and liquids are GMP certified within our BSI scope.

Packs suit the plant: amber glass for tinctures, bitters and light-sensitive extracts, bottles with desiccant for capsules of hygroscopic extracts, and high-barrier pouches or stick packs for powders. Development runs from plant and extract selection to bench samples, taste work for bitter herbs, a pilot batch and stability in your final pack, and each stage leaves a record your brand keeps.

How we make and test herbal supplements

1. Specification and suppliers. Species, part, extract, solvent, drug-to-extract ratio, markers and contaminant limits are agreed in development, and every supplier is approved before any material is used.
2. Identity. Each botanical lot gets an HPTLC fingerprint against an authenticated reference, the method of the European Pharmacopoeia (2.8.25) and United States Pharmacopeia General Chapter <203>. It exposes a substituted species or the wrong part, and an HPLC assay then measures the markers.
3. Adulteration screens. We screen each plant for its known adulterants. Turmeric extracts have been cut with synthetic curcumin, and turmeric with dyes such as metanil yellow; radiocarbon analysis tells plant-derived from synthetic curcumin, as a 2018 American Botanical Council bulletin set out (NutraIngredients, June 2018).
4. Make. Each material is weighed against the batch record under our allergen management plan, then blended and filled into capsules, pressed into tablets, filled into stick packs or bottled as liquids. Hygroscopic or sticky extracts are granulated or blended with a flow aid before filling, and bitter liquid extracts get their taste work at the bench, before scale-up.
5. Contaminants. Heavy metals, pesticide residues and microbiology, against each market's limits, such as 3.0 mg/kg of lead for food supplements in Great Britain and the EU.
6. Stability. Marker compounds are tracked through stability studies in your final pack, so the best before date rests on measured data.
7. Release. Every batch is tested by accredited partner laboratories (ISO/IEC 17025) as part of every order, and quality control releases it against its specification; nothing is dispatched without quality control sign-off. We keep three retained samples per batch for shelf life plus one year. You receive a certificate of analysis for every batch, and from development the specification and the stability data. See testing and batch release.

Novel food status, national plant lists and EU safety reviews

As of October 2026, these are the points that change what herbal brands can make and sell. We review each line every quarter, and our regulation watch tracks the detail.

• Novel food status. Status follows the plant part, the preparation and the use, so we screen every botanical before formulation and again before each new market.
• National plant lists. Some EU countries, Italy among them, set national lists of plants for food supplements, with label warnings for certain plants, so we check each plant against the rules of every country you sell in.
• EU safety reviews. Some botanicals, such as berberine and green tea extract, are under EU safety review, so EU formulas that use them get a ready alternative.

References: Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 on novel foods (2015); Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims (2006); Department of Health and Social Care, on hold health claims on foods (2021); European Court of Auditors, special report 23/2024 on food labelling (2024); Food Standards Agency, register of authorised novel foods for Great Britain (2026); EFSA, re-evaluation of curcumin (E 100) as a food additive (2010); MHRA, herbal medicines granted a traditional herbal registration (2025); Jäger and colleagues, Nutrition Journal (2014).