Market-leading contract manufacturing solutions

The benefits of contract manufacturing

Contract manufacturing enables brand owners to reduce production costs and focus instead on their core competencies – namely, marketing and selling their brands. By partnering with a contract manufacturing company like Prime and outsourcing their product development, brand owners can bring new products to market in less time.

This is particularly beneficial for smaller companies who may not have proprietary R&D facilities and teams. By lowering the risk involved in developing new products, Prime can mitigate the cost and complexity of prototyping and product launches, and make low volume manufacturing of niche products more viable.

The Prime difference

Prime offers exceptional quality and cost-effective contract manufacturing solutions, as well as delivering socio-economic and transformative benefits by creating employment opportunities and maintaining skills locally.

Whether they are looking to expand their product range or lack specific production capacity, multinational companies often look to outsource their R&D and manufacturing. Similarly, start-ups can benefit from contract manufacturing partnerships when they are looking to manage their cashflow and build brand equity. In fact, the benefits of contract manufacturing are applicable across the retail, multi-level and direct to consumer sectors, for both FMCG products and high-tech items.

How consumers benefit

End users may not be aware of the role that contract manufacturing plays in getting their favourite products onto supermarket and pharmacy shelves, but they certainly appreciate having access to high quality brands at more competitive prices.

In this way, we are positively impacting consumers’ lives by lowering the cost base and ensuring that shoppers can take advantage of improved choice and enhanced value for money when purchasing items, whether these are everyday essentials or high-end luxuries.

Why choose Prime Product Manufacturing?

In terms of contract manufacturing, Prime offers multiple advantages. The quality of our manufacturing processes is reflected in the fact that we hold the ISO 22716 international cosmetics benchmark certification – the ultimate guarantee of rigorous quality control at every stage of product development and manufacturing.

Our commitment to R&D has seen us create the largest and most experienced cosmetics R&D team in South Africa, and underpins our drive for continuous improvement and innovation. In terms of manufacturing, we have the capacity and capability to manage orders at every scale, and our flawless compliance record (including Good Manufacturing Practices, or GMP) mitigates the risks of product recalls or reputational damage.

By maintaining discrete production lines, we avoid cross-contamination dangers and protect our customers’ IP – we never copy formulations. By working with multiple customers, we have grown our knowledge base to the point where it sustains our reputation as the market leader in contract manufacturing.

The Prime Product Manufacturing difference

There are multiple factors behind our success in becoming the local market leader. The most important factor is our people, their qualifications, skills and experience. Our tailormade solutions and seamless processes are backed by the values and ethics we have stuck with for over 30 years.

We deliver multiple stakeholder benefits through a combination of internal capacity and partnerships with specialist industry leaders. We have remained curious about our industry – something that’s reflected in our pioneering role in the development of nanotechnology and our research partnerships with leading South African academic institutions including the University of Pretoria and University of Potchefstroom.

Overcoming contract manufacturing obstacles

South Africa is a unique business environment. The combination of a fragmented, competitive market, offshoring of manufacturing and a lack of barriers to entry for overseas competitors make this a challenging business. Then there are the factors that are unique to South Africa, including power supply and infrastructure challenges.

We have played a leading role in establishing an industry association here in South Africa with a view to creating a mutually supportive framework, and finding ways to collectively take advantage of the predicted doubling in size of the local personal care market by 2030.

The future of contract manufacturing

Increased ease of access to information means that consumers are better informed – and consequently, more demanding. This includes holding brands to account over their sustainability credentials.

Consumer trends are creating demand for seamlessly integrated digital and tangible product experiences (empowered by AI), and multi-functional products. Interest in cosmeceuticals will create new opportunities, but also new regulatory challenges.

By working closely with brands, we can anticipate trends and align our operations to meet changing requirements. In terms of sustainability, we take the lead from our clients. We’re working with some of our biggest customers on initiatives to reduce carbon emissions and introduce reusable packaging. We have also invested in ERP technology to track components and plastic waste, and increase our accountability and transparency.

Becoming a hub of knowledge

As we continue to pursue organic growth, we will focus on becoming a centre of excellence in key market areas that we have identified as having exciting potential in South Africa and across sub-Saharan Africa. These include suncare, emulsions and ethnic haircare products. As always, we will continue to work closely with our customers to anticipate market changes, develop new products, and maintain our position as the market leader in contract manufacturing.