Supplier Spotlight: Get to Know the Team at FutureCeuticals (Vibrant Health‚s Fruit & Vegetable Formula Supplier)

In this month‚s Vibrant Health interview series, we got to chat with the team at FutureCeuticals, a worldwide ingredient supplier specializing in organic whole food powders and extracts. We have been partnering with FutureCeuticals for nearly 20 years ‚ constantly innovating and coming up with new ways to offer you, our customer, the best of the best when it comes to nutrient-dense, world-class products you can trust. In this eye-opening interview, we chat with FutureCeuticals about the history of their company (dating back to the 1850s!), their unique supply chain process ‚ from farm to package ‚ and the incredible health benefits of incorporating more organic fruit, vegetable, herb, and grain-based whole foods into your diet. We‚ll let the FutureCeuticals team take it away from here!

What‚s the FutureCeuticals‚ story? Tell us how it all began!

FutureCeuticals‚ story starts with its family heritage‚one that had a history rich in agriculture, ingenuity, and an eye to the future of food, health and wellness. In the 1850s, the Van Drunen family first immigrated to the United States from the Netherlands. They soon began their legacy growing vegetables and herbs. By the 1980s, their small farming operation had evolved to include a large-scale manufacturing operation that processed fruit, vegetables, and herbs. Today, Van Drunen Farms is one of the largest suppliers of freeze-dried ingredients in the United States and offers other dried and frozen plant-based ingredients‚serving large multinationals and start-ups alike. The company is still owned by the Van Drunen family, who will always be farmers at their core, with a passion for delivering real, whole food to their customers‚and ultimately consumers‚first. In 1999, FutureCeuticals, the sister company of Van Drunen Farms, was formed by the Van Drunen family out of the desire to harness the power of these plant-based ingredients by standardizing them and doing clinical research to determine how they benefit human health. Our naturalingredientsare backed by peer-reviewed scienceand offer real ingredient solutions for people of all ages, fitness levels, and health needs ‚ from individual ingredients to custom blends designed for your specific application. Our consultative approach enables us to offer a wide range of ingredients ‚ forsports nutrition, health and wellness, functional food, dietary supplement, personal care, and pet wellness ‚ tocreate endless possibilities for our customers. FutureCeuticals is a global leader in the research and development of natural, scientifically validated fruit, vegetable, and grain-based ingredients.

Tell us more about your unique supply chain process, from farming to manufacturing to bottle. How does this make you different from other companies?

We are unique in that we offer a simplified supply chain to our customers. We grow, manufacture, research, and create our plant-based ingredients! We make it easy to ensure traceability to today‚s consumer, who cares about supporting brands that use ingredients they can trust. It starts with growing. Our sister company Van Drunen Farms has over 300 certified-organic and more than 1300 conventional acres of farmland in Illinois and California, where they grow a wide variety of culinary herbs and vegetables in the rich soilof the Midwest and the Coachella Valley. Our partnership with them makes it possible to deliver those ingredients to our customers, and we work with otherfarming partners around the globe to grow and supply additional products. We hold our farming partners to the same strict standards that we do ourselves, ensuring quality products from seed to finished product each and every time. Next, in-house manufacturing for versatile solutions. Van Drunen Farms has over 1,000,000 square feet of manufacturing and research facilities in Illinois, Indiana, California, Serbia and Chile where our fruit, vegetable, and grain-based ingredients are processed. Our in-house manufacturing capabilities ensure traceability and the highest quality solutions. Our Discovery Research Program sets us apart. At our in-house, ISO-certified Research and Analytical Center, we study nutrition at the cellular level, and are proud to be the trusted partner for companies in search of creative, ethical solutions for the health and wellness needs of today‚s consumer. Our in-house clinical laboratory partners with world-class research institutes and universities in order to provide the requisite substantiation necessary for safe products with defensible, highly marketable claims. Our Discovery Research Program identifies materials at the cellular level, screens against numerous biomarkers and genes, targets specific biological activity, and pursues clinical studies published in peer-reviewed journals. Finally, we help our customers create the unique solutions they are looking for. We act as an extension of our customers‚ product development team. Our in-house research and development capabilities allow for convenient, versatile and creative ingredients that power finished product innovation. Our team of experts will guide you through all the steps of the process, and we make it our mission to be your experienced development partner. Our vertically integrated supply chain makes it easy‚from field to function to finished product.

How do you integrate your company values ‚ humility, integrity, passion and excellence ‚ into your day-to-day?

At FutureCeuticals, our values‚humility, integrity, passion, and excellence‚are at the cornerstone of everything we do. Humility At FutureCeuticals, all team members are valued for their unique contributions. We collaborate to create the best solutions for our customers‚always acknowledging that we are stronger together. We are willing to take responsibility when we make mistakes, and never forget our commitment to our greater purpose, serving our customers as best as we can as an essential business. Integrity The FutureCeuticals culture is built on honesty and transparency. We align our business practices with the highest quality standards and follow-through on the commitments we make to our customers. Passion At FutureCeuticals, plants are our passion. Our team members all share a passion for plant-based power, and we believe in fuelling our team members‚ development. We believe so strongly in helping our employees grow and develop that we made it a part of our core mission. By offering further education support, personal growth opportunities, and more, we help our employees develop their passion. Excellence Quality is the key to our ingredients. Whether in food quality or food safety, we strive every day to provide world-class products.

You study nutrition at the cellular level and are constantlyinnovating. Can you give us a snapshot into what goes into the research process?

We are proud of the industry-leading research process that we have established over the past 20 years and pride ourselves on structuring our clinical studies to the highest standards and working with some of the brightest minds in our industry and academia. All of our clinical studies are peer-reviewed, and we are constantly looking for new opportunities to further strengthen the science behind our products. We continually invest heavily in the most cutting edge technologies to help us analyze ingredients at the cellular level and discover the true extent of the benefits that our ingredients deliver within the human body.

Tell us more about your collaboration with Vibrant Health. What do you want our readers to know? Do you have a favorite product?

Our partnership with Vibrant Health began almost 20 years ago, and throughout that time we have been proud to support Vibrant Health‚s mission and vision in a variety of ways including working together on novel concepts using our IP and by collaborating on a large supply chain streamlining process which has helped Vibrant Health continue to offer their customers world-class quality products while greatly reducing the risk of any interruptions in their supply chain. We have also worked together on innovative testing methods to enhance Vibrant Health‚s ability to deliver on their Truth, Trust and Transparency promise. We are honored to be Vibrant Health‚s #1 fruit and vegetable supplier and are excited for what is to come in the future of our partnership! We love all of Vibrant Health‚s products and are especially fond of Maximum Vibrance both because of the diversity of the ingredients and their functions, and the benefits we have experienced when consuming it! Plus, on top of all that it tastes great!

What are some of the benefits of incorporating more organic fruit, vegetable, herb and grain-based whole food into your diet?

By incorporating more organic fruit, vegetable, herb, and grain-based whole foods into your diet, you harness the power of plants by incorporating key nutrients that fuel the body for optimal sports performance, immune health, and general well-being. Eating enough nutrients as a part of a balanced diet keeps our body healthy and functioning properly. When you put good things in, you get good things out. What does wellness look like for you and your team at FutureCeuticals? At FutureCeuticals, it is important to us to provide our team the ability to live their healthiest and happiest lives. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the FutureCeuticals fitness center provided strength training, high intensity interval training, and yoga classes for all employees, as well as cardio and weight-lifting equipment. We also offered healthy snacks and a smoothie station, encouraging our team to fuel throughout the day. In the midst of the pandemic, our approach to wellness has shifted to include guidance and trainings to help team members cope with stress and adjust to working from home, as well as still providing a few virtual workout classes. Most of all, it is important to us that our team members have balanced lives and feel empowered to achieve their goals ‚ and we are here to support them every step of the way.

Anything else you want our readers to know?

To learn more about FutureCeuticals, you can visit our website, futureceuticals.com or call us at 815.507.1400