Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF), a leading global nutrition company, today announced plans to expand its manufacturing capabilities inChina, as it looks to increase its capacity in line with anticipated growth in this strategically important market. This would add to Herbalife’s existing manufacturing facilities in Suzhou, and its botanical extraction plant in Changsha.
Herbalife has identified an existing, newly built facility in Jiangning High-tech Industry Park (JHIP), Nanjing as the location for its newest manufacturing facility, due to the unique environment it provides for companies operating in the life science industries, as well as the relative speed to operation in having only to renovate an existing facility.
JHIP brings together companies from across the entire industry – research and development; incubation; small- and large-scale manufacturing; and marketing – to create and foster innovation and intellectual collaboration. Herbalife will invest up to $40MM USD in a first phase of development, to bring the facility up to the highest operating standards.
This first phase is expected to be complete and the facility operational by the end of 2015, with the potential for a second phase of development, given the size and flexibility of the facility. This new facility will ultimately provide up to 65% of the company’s total product requirements in China.
Richard Goudis, chief operating officer, Herbalife said, “We are