Charles Zhang, chairman and CEO of Aseptic Solutions USA, has discovered a unique niche. The company is a contract manufacturer/co-packer for a variety of premium juices, energy shots, and nutritional and vitamin supplements for its clients.Started by Zhang in 2005, the company offers state-of-the-art technologies in producing and bottling beverages.
He has been involved in the food and beverage industry for the past 25 years. No stranger to success, he was the founder of Pick Up Stix, a quick-casual dining restaurant serving Chinese cuisine with more than 90 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona. When Zhang sold the business to a major restaurant chain in 2004, his entrepreneurial spirit was piqued by an emerging segment of the beverage industry – high-tech premium bottling. In 2005, he began Aseptic Solutions USA and hasn’t looked back.
“Aseptic Solutions USA mixes and packages a wide variety of national-brand products, including exotic juices seen in most major grocery stores and specialty markets across the country and many preservative-free liquid nutritional supplements distributed worldwide,” Zhang says. “We’ve experienced double-digit growth in sales each year since we opened our doors.”
Additionally, the manufacturing plant has grown from one to three production lines to accommodate its increasing number of clients. The company also recently upgraded the filling equipment to support its customers’ growth by improving efficiencies while ensuring quality standards. “Ultimately, Aseptic Solutions, its customers and the consumer all win,” Sales Manager Ivan Loochkartt says. The operation revolves around creating the ideal method of formulating, mixing and bottling a client’s specific product. “Initially, we analyze a formulation within our quality control department,” Loochkartt says. “When it’s determined our facility is able to produce the product to our high quality standards, we get to work.”
Quality Focus
Implementing a strict quality control process at every stage of production, the plant receives the ingredients and checks to ensure they meet the beverage’s standards. Once accepted, the ingredients are sent to the batching department where the drink formulation is mixed and processed. Then, the beverage is sent to the bottling department to be filled, capped and sleeved, date coded, and boxed.
From there, the labels are individually coded with a tracking number to ensure traceability. Samples are then sent to the quality control department for its final analysis. “We check the beverage to make sure the products’ taste and freshness meet our standards,” Zhang claims. “We also analyze the nutritional content to be sure the product meets the nutritional label claims.”
After the products are packaged, palletized, shrink wrapped and tagged, they are ready for delivery. “Because we operate using a just-in-time manufacturing method, the company’s trucks are waiting to be loaded right after the batch has been run,” Zhang says. “This helps ensure product freshness.”
Prime Processes
A large part of the company’s success lies in its processing operation. All bottles are sterilized before packaging. In addition, the company implements various methods of sanitizing the beverage itself during the processing phase. Aseptic Solutions takes an “under-promise/over-perform” approach. “We had a customer that was fairly new,” Zhang says.
“We had just completed a batch of a new product to be shipped on Friday that the client was introducing at a trade show in Las Vegas that Monday at a luncheon,” he explains. Unfortunately,; the trucking company had scheduled the run for the following Friday and didn’t pick up the product.
“We used our trucks and our people to ship the product to the show,” he says, adding that the products arrived in time to be served with the client’s introduction luncheon. “We want to make sure our clients are successful,” he says. “And we’re willing to help them out in every way we can.”