Written by Amy Steets, Program Coordinator for Vitamin Angels -

Two weeks ago, Ada Lauren and I (as representatives from Vitamin Angels' Programs Division) travelled to Olds, Alberta, Canada to visit one of our long-time manufacturers of vitamin A capsules - check out the photos below! Banner Pharmacaps is a global gelatin-based drug delivery and specialty pharmaceutical company that has developed pharmaceutical technologies that conform to the highest standards of excellence and currently supply the majority of the Vitamin A capsules to International Aid Agencies under the auspices of the WHO and to Vitamin Angels.    Banner also supplies ongoing technical advice to Vitamin Angels, both with regards to capsule manufacturing specifications and packaging specifications.

In addition to meeting with the fabulous staff at the manufacturing plant, we had the pleasure of taking a tour of the product line to see our vitamin A being produced firsthand. When I visited Haiti last October, I remember seeing the boxes of product we had shipped prior to the visit stacked high in a storage room and felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and perspective about what we do at Vitamin Angels.  So you can only imagine the even greater sense of perspective I gained by seeing raw material injected into a gelatin capsule and then set to dry on a drying tray! As I watched each capsule pass by on the line, I couldn’t help but think, every capsule has a name. A child in Cote d’Ivoire may receive this life-saving dose. A child in India may receive that one. A child in Bolivia… and so on. To think that we are distributing 40 million of these capsules to 20 million children in 2010 is mind boggling when you see each capsule at its most elemental stage. 

So many people have a hand in getting those vitamin A capsules to the children that need them; the Banner manufacturing team, donors, the VA staff, and so on. When we all work together, great things happen!

Ready about Amy's trip to Haiti last October>>  Blog 1, Blog 2

  Raw material vitamin a in the warehouse waiting to move to production

Raw material for the capsules

Ribbon of capsule gelatin about to be filled with vitamin A

Capsules on the drying tray

Vitamin A 200,000 iu capsules

Vitamin A 100,000 iu (for children 6-12 months of age)

Vitamin A 100,000 iu after it had been tumbled and dried. Next stop… bottling!

Vitamin A bottles on the bottling line

Vitamin A bottles on the bottling line… about to be capped, sealed and labeled

What VA pallets of finished product vitamin A look like before they are shipped to VA (look for VA stickers coming soon!)

Amy and Ada with Banner staff (left to right: Cory Holmes, Ada Lauren, Ken Tkachuk, Amy Steets, Sandy Bowman)