Ever wondered how your favourite Kiwiherb products came about? Our New Product Development (NPD) team take initial ideas and work to ensure all Kiwiherb products combine traditional herbal wisdom with scientific evidence. Take a peek at our NPD process and what a ‘day in the life’ of our NPD team looks like.

What is New Product Development?

NPD is the journey every single Kiwiherb product takes, from the minds of our expert NPD team to finally landing in your hands.

It involves researching ingredients and health issues to develop new product concepts. Once the team identifies these ideas, they’re extensively tested and trialled with the aim of creating new health solutions.

The Kiwiherb NPD process

The process begins with researching ideas, which come from a huge range of sources, including:

• New research: recently published studies and research journals
• Traditional herbal uses
• Customer suggestions
• Farmers telling us about a new herb they can grow
• Other Phytomed staff

The ideas with the most potential are then summarised and discussed to work out if they’re commercially viable and meets both business and customers’ needs. This means everyone from regulation through to sales and marketing, production and finance, has their say.

Only if everyone involves agrees do we move forward in the process of getting a fabulous new product in your hands.

A typical day in the life of Kiwiherb’s NPD team

Not only is it incredibly varied, it draws on the team’s expert skills and experience. The team is headed up by Kiwiherb founder Phil Rasmussen, an experienced Medical Herbalist with a busy clinic in Auckland. He previously worked for more than 10 years as a pharmacist, after obtaining his Master’s degree in Pharmacology. He’s joined by two other team members, including another Medical Herbalist.

One day they might be researching the uses of a herb, evaluating research articles on it and working out whether we can use in a particular market, then the next they might be working with a formula, researching biochemical pathways to understand how a particular effect occurs and looking at the best form of a product. Then the exciting part - trialling the formulation to see how effective it is and how it tastes.

You’ll also find them creating a cost analysis to see whether a product is commercially viable, answering questions for other departments, and writing up technical specifications and summaries.

Why NPD is so important to Kiwiherb

Herbal medicine is an incredibly exciting field to work within, as Kiwiherb NPD creates a synergy between ancient traditions and cutting-edge research. We’re continually striving to create new solutions, not just simply new products. New research emerges often, opening up fresh healthcare opportunities as we view traditional use with new eyes. NPD allows us to maximise these opportunities and offer you new solutions for your family’s health. 

Ready to discover the Kiwiherb difference? Go shopping.