How vitamins are made

• The CapsuleWorks facility for Nature's Bounty Company produces 50 million vitamins per day.
• We traveled to the facility in Long Island, New York to get a peek inside.
• Here's how vitamins are made.

The following is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: Vitamins. They come in a bunch of different forms. Softgels, tablets, liquids. It's a giant industry on the rise that makes billions of dollars annually. I had the chance the travel to Long Island, New York, to learn firsthand all that goes into the vitamin-making process. Hey guys, it's Fabiana, and I'm here today at the CapsuleWorks facility for the Nature's Bounty company. I'm gonna be learning all about how vitamins are made, which I personally am really excited about because I'm like a grandma, and I'm very adamant about taking my daily vitamin every day. So I'm here with Benvinda, and she's gonna show me how this facility works. I feel very official in this geared-up outfit. OK. Like that?

Benvinda: Yep.

Fabiana: These pop out easily?

Benvinda: You only need those when you go in the room.

Fabiana: I'm just so eager. I'm just so ready. The CapsuleWorks facility produces 50 million vitamin capsules and tablets per day. Making vitamins is similar to baking a cake, as Benvinda described it. Stick with me here.

Benvinda: So we have all of our kitting ingredients here, behind us. Once they're ready, they'll pull that pallet and bring it into the room, and then just literally follow a recipe. The recipes could tell them mix for 10 minutes, wait for five, add this ingredient, wait for five minutes.

Fabiana: This is the compounding area. These machines seen here vacuum the air out while mixing the ingredients. Now it's time to make the gelatin. Granulated gelatin is vacuumed from a large tote bag into vessels. In here is where the gelatin is mixed with other ingredients. After the gelatin has been cooked, it is dropped into the tanks. From there, the gelatin and nutrients are mixed together. This is the fish aisle. Next is the encapsulation area. The freshly made gel ribbons first go through a bath of oil, which acts as a glue to help form the softgel. At first, the softgel is super squishy. After some of the oil has been removed from the vitamins and they've had some time to dry, the consistency of them is much more firm. The vitamins then are spread out onto large trays and placed into drying tunnels to let the vitamins continue drying for 12 to 36 hours. In here is the inspection area where electronic systems count and inspect the vitamins at the same time. After they're inspected, the vitamins go into the shipping warehouse. All vitamins are shipped out the day that they are made.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in April 2019.