NOW hosted its first West Coast Retailer Conference in Sparks, Nevada, August 7 – 8, 2014, including a tour of its newest manufacturing and distribution facility. Informative sessions focused on education, networking, and product training, and were held at the Peppermill Hotel in Reno.

The conference, attended by approximately 100 NOW retail customers, opened on August 7 with National Sales Manager Dan Richard and CEO Jim Emme telling the story of NOW Foods, followed by American Botanical Council Founder Mark Blumenthal presenting an informative and entertaining program on herbs.

On Friday, attendees were treated to a tour of NOW’s GMP-certified state-of-the-art manufacturing and distribution facility, including softgel encapsulation. Presenters included Alexandra Kameda-Bacon, quality and R&D manager, who described NOW’s outstanding quality assurance and testing programs, as well as the technical know-how that goes into product formulation; Amber Cerda, marketing communication manager, who shared information on the array of support tools that NOW offers its retailers to help them be more successful; and Neil Levin, nutrition education manager, who gave an overview of the NOW® Sports category. The day ended with a special presentation by former NPA President Jeff Wright, owner of Wrights Nutrients.

“Bringing NOW’s retailer conference and the benefits it gives our customers to the West Coast was a true privilege for us,” said NOW CEO Jim Emme. “We are so proud of our newest facility and we were pleased to get to share it with our customers, who took the time to immerse themselves in NOW for a few days and learn more about what makes our company so unique.”

“The quality standards we got to see first hand were very important to us and we have all of the confidence in the world telling our customers that what you have on the label is 100% what is in the product,” said John Gillespie of Sunrise Natural Foods in California. “The lectures were very informative, reassuring us about things we currently do and teaching us new ideas we can implement. We can't wait to pass the information along to our fellow employees and customers.”