Case Study: Onshore Your Formulation & Manufacturing to Generate Efficiency & Lower Costs
Are you an international company expanding your operations into the U.S.? Is your business and product portfolio connected to chemistry- and biology-based industries that require formulation expertise and manufacturing capabilities? For example, agriculture, turf and ornamental, coatings, biologicals, electronics and others?
In 2018, Belgium-based Belchim Crop Protection NV began operations in the U.S. and needed formulation and manufacturing partners to localize their product development and production. They sought to provide American farmers, growers, and turf and ornamental professionals with innovative products that addressed key pest management concerns, much like they had been doing for more than 30 years for their international customers. Tom Wood was appointed general manager of Belchim Crop Protection USA and reached out to the teams at CJB Industries and CJB Applied Technologies based on prior experiences with our companies. He was searching for a partner to support the launch of TOUGH® 5EC herbicide into the U.S. market.
“We started with nothing in terms of formulation and manufacturing in the United States. So we set up a new supply chain in the U.S. to shrink our supply chain as much as we could and to lower costs. We approached CJB to make TOUGH 5EC herbicide in the United States. They were our number one choice because of their reputation in the market and because I knew them and their work from my prior roles in the industry,” Tom explained.
Challenge: Identify U.S.-based contract formulation and manufacturing partners to shorten the supply chain
Bringing your business from another country into the U.S. is a daunting task. For regulated industries like agriculture, that means going through the necessary national and state channels to have your products approved for use. It also means deciding how to supply the market with your products – do you import fully produced products, build your own infrastructure, or partner with established companies well-respected for their work? And what does the timeline look like when you’re getting ready to launch a new herbicide?
For Tom and the Belchim team, they knew their pathway to the market resided in partnering with experts in the industry. They needed to find companies that could fill the roles of formulators and manufacturers, so they set out to conduct plant validations, material qualifying, quality control analysis and technical service evaluations.
Solution: CJB partnership provides needed capabilities and expertise in formulation and manufacturing
Over the past several decades, CJB Industries has established its leadership in the agricultural contract manufacturing space. Likewise, CJB Applied Technologies has been delivering formulation excellence for about a decade. Tom and Belchim partnered with the CJB teams based on their reputation, prior experience working with them, capabilities and expertise, and collaborative and flexible approach to projects.
“Outside of just good, quality stuff coming out of CJB, our experience in working with the CJB teams is that they are very flexible and have good communication. Not everything in business is fun to do, but the CJB teams have been a pleasure to work with. It’s a good atmosphere. It’s a good collaboration, and we really appreciate it,” Tom stated.
In preparing to bring TOUGH 5EC herbicide to market, CJB Applied Technologies worked closely with Belchim to validate the formula, qualify new materials, and develop new co-formulas with the active ingredient. Our CJB team tapped into our lab and pilot plant facilities to ensure the product met the Belchim specs, and when we uncovered some discrepancies, we worked closely with the Belchim chemical engineers in Europe to validate and revise the specs.
“CJB came to us and said, ‘Here are your specs; you’re not necessarily within spec for what we’re doing. Any ideas?’ In working with our team in Europe, they confirmed that what CJB was seeing was in fact correct; our European team just hadn’t updated the documentation. That led us to adjust our specs to be more descriptive,” Tom explained.
Following state registrations of TOUGH 5EC, Tom turned to CJB Industries for his production runs. Our CJB team met their initial launch volume needs, despite TOUGH 5EC only gaining registration in March at the start of the crop season. Belchim also wanted to second source nearly all materials that go into TOUGH 5EC, so our CJB team tested each one to ensure they worked within the formulation and didn’t create any impurities or other issues. This included testing in the lab and our pilot plant.
“We’re heading into year four with TOUGH 5EC, and it’s picking up quite well. We will have put in the market over half a million acres. And our distributors and retailers tell us that we should be very happy that that’s happened. It’s really gaining traction. And CJB is a big part of that,” Tom commented.
In addition, we assisted with qualifying materials and different active ingredient sources for their TOUGH R herbicide and ensured the formulation was stable. “It’s not a very stable formulation,” Tom said. “CJB knows the active ingredients and how they act. They helped us out quite a bit getting that set up in the U.S.”
Results: Formulation expertise and production reliability enable ongoing efficiencies for U.S. business
Beyond meeting the initial formulation refinement and launch volume for TOUGH 5EC herbicide, our CJB teams continue to support Belchim with technical expertise, formulation support and manufacturing production.
“Having the CJB teams to rely on for good technical expertise and advice is something we really value,” Tom said. “We’re confident that when we have issues in the field, we can call Jimmy or Drew or even the plant manager and say, ‘Hey, we’re seeing this. What do you think? And is this a big issue?’ They know our product. We’re not chemists or chemical engineers. We’re just commercial guys out selling stuff. But if something unexpected happens with the formulation, guys like Jimmy and Drew will say, ‘Yep, this is what we believe it is. If you want to send us a sample, we’ll analyze it and confirm it.’ Or it’s good to hear them sometimes say, ‘Yeah, that’s not a big deal. Keep going. It won’t affect efficacy in the field, and the grower will never see it.’”