Category Archives: supplyside

The SupplySide International Trade Shows & Conferences

1-supplmentThe SupplySide International Trade Shows & Conferences brings together global dietary supplement, food and cosmeceutical companies and ingredient suppliers. The shows represent the largest exhibitions of raw materials and services for the nutraceutical and functional food industries. The Supply Side West 2016 took place in Las Vegas from October 4 to 8 and focused on the new dietary ingredient notification process. This focus strengthened the importance of Good Manufacturing Practices and labelling procedures. Some controversial supplements included Aloe, Hemp and Cannabis, which were discussed in length related to confusion in definitions, plant parts used and classification of active ingredients.  The American Herbal Products Association website (https://bsh.ahpa.org/HomePage.aspx) has more information regarding these topics and the website also includes The Botanical safety handbook. This handbook together with the Dietary Supplement Fact sheets (https://ods.od.nih.gov/) helps consumers make educated decisions regarding supplements. Pickering Laboratories interest in this growing industry is to provide support and options to analytical methods using post-column technology. Our post-column derivatization instruments (Pinnacle PCX and Vector PCX) combined with the relevant kits ( analytical column, mobile phase, reagent) can be used to analyze contaminants such as pesticides (Carbamates), herbicides (Glyphosate) and mycotoxins that are harmful to consumers and active ingredients such as amino acids. Details for these methods can be found at https://atloggerheads.net/library/.

Update on Pickering Activities

Since October, we’ve traveled across North America and to China to bring awareness to some of our new markets and products, as well as created some new application notes and posters:

Las Vegas, NV
Supplyside West and AHPA’s Botanical Congress

The SupplySide West meeting and Expo is held in Las Vegas every year. This year it was held at Manadalay Bay Resort & Casino from October 6-10. Laszlo, Saji and I were on hand to present our systems and applications for the Natural Products industry.  Our  applications on Amino Acids, Vitamins, Antioxidants, Mycotoxins, and Glyphosate, among other are applicable to this market.

On the Friday following the show, the American Herbal Products Association held their 2nd Annual Botanical Congress. This was a very exciting and interesting meeting all about Natural Products. For the meeting, we presented our posters:

Amino Acid Analysis in Supplements and Sports Drinks
Analysis of Theanine in Tea (an amino acid)
Aflatoxins and Ochratoxin A in Herbs and Spices

Galveston, TX
Gulf Coast Conference

The annual meeting of the Gulf Coast Conference was held for the final year in Galveston, Texas (it moves to Houston in 2015). Taken from their website, “The Gulf Coast Conference is an organization oriented toward the education and advancement of galvestonknowledge of Chemical Analysis Technology associated with the Petrochemical, Refining, and Environmental fields, and will forward this goal through annual technical meetings, regular communications, and training courses focused on these fields.”  I went down to Texas to check out the meeting and to determine whether it may be a good fit for our GPC cleanup systems for use in the Environmental testing field.

Vancouver, BC
SETAC Annual Meeting

The Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry held their annual meeting in dextechVancouver, British Columbia in November. Saji and I were there to present our new Dioxin cleanup system, the DEXTech to the environmental chemistry group. The new DEXTech can cleanup of samples for the analysis of dioxins and PCBs — and do so quickly and efficiently.

Check out the brochure HEREvancouver

Our Canadian distributors, Chromatographic Specialties, were also on hand and were a big help to the success of the meeting.

Hangzhou, China
Ameritech’s Marketing Communications and Customer Appreciation Meeting.

Held on November 20, 2014. Mike and I traveled to Hangzhou, China for the meeting.  You can read more about it in Mike’s report here

Pickering exhibits in Las Vegas

-By Mike Gottschalk

Las Vegas, Nevada – Oct. 1 – 5 was the site of the AOAC international show this year.  Pickering Laboratories participated as usual in this important International event. “We see many of our customers and distributors from all over the world at this show” said Wendy Rasmussen, sales manager Pickering Laboratories. “We get to show our new products and catch up with them with new developments in their business.”

Pickering Laboratories presented Posters of our new applications Chrome VI and Antioxidants in foods. The herbal supplement market is a growing market and with FDA guidance, more concerned with testing for quality in their products. “We continue to develop methods in matrices important to this market including the antioxidants, Aflatoxins, Amino Acids and others”  said Laszlo Torma, technical liaison for Pickering Laboratories.

The AOAC international show enables laboratories and suppliers to be involved in the mission of creating analytical methods for today’s most pressing testing challenges. Pickering Laboratories is an award winning member of several committees and laboratory collaborations to further the goal of analytical excellence.

Las Vegas, Nevada – Nov. 6-9 – Yes! Las Vegas Again! This time for the annual Supply Side West show.  1,800 vendors and 30,000 participants meet to network and explore resources in this, the largest gathering of Herbal supplement suppliers and vendors.  Now that the FDA enforcements are increasing, many Herbal supplement manufacturers are working hard to improve their analytical testing capabilities and Pickering Laboratories is there to help.  “With several methods for herbal supplement testing and extensive experience in the food safety industry we can offer experience and laboratory equipment support to the herbal supplement manufactures” – said Mike Gottschalk, VP Marketing, Pickering Laboratories.

Laszlo Torma enjoys the sights and sounds of “Venice”

Pickering Laboratories is a member of the “American Herbal Products Association” and member of the Laboratories Methods Committee for AHPA. The collaboration with AHPA and the Supply Side West show have provided valuable insight to the needs of the Supplement community and the unique capabilities Pickering Laboratories can offer this market.

SupplySide West Expo 2011

By Mike Gottschalk

Laszlo Torma inside the Venetian Hotel & Casino

The Supplyside West Conference is a very important Herbal Supplement Industry event. It provides important educational and networking opportunities to this $29 billion market. Since the FDA set out required current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) in 2007, the Herbal Supplement producers are working to meet the new requirements before the FDA audits. These regulations are intended to insure the quality, purity and safety of the Herbal Supplement products available today.  


The show is held in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 19-23. Pickering Laboratories exhibited at the show. We introduced our instruments, and methods to the industry. Of primary concern are Mycotoxins and Amino Acids, but also pesticides. Our GPC Clean-up and post-column instruments are well-suited to these applications. 

In addition to the literature and instruments in the booth, we presented two posters:

“Immunoaffinity Clean-up and  Analysis of Aflatoxins and Ochratoxin A in Herbs & Spices using HPLC with Post-column Photochemical Derivatization”

The production of herbal supplements and spices is a fast growing industry. There are numerous reports on the presence of Mycotoxins in commercially available herbs and spices such as chamomile, black and white tea leaves, ginkgo leaves, paprika and cumin. We developed a simple, sensitive and robust HPLC-Post Column Derivatization method for analyzing Aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, G2 and Ochratoxin A in herbs and spices. AflaOTAClean Immunoaffinity columns contain antibodies specific for both classes of Mycotoxins and allow for fast and efficient sample clean-up. We used the AcceClean automated workstation, which processes three samples simultaneously.


“Accelerated Amino Acids using HPLC with Post-Column Derivatization”

We developed an accelerated amino acids analysis method for Physiological and Protein Hydrolysate samples that utilizes temperature and eluant gradients. Protein Hydrolysates can be analyzed in 48min (inject-to-inject). Amino Acid Analysis is an important step in the Quality Control and R&D of dietary supplements, sports drinks, pharmaceuticals and in any type of sample where the amino acid content is of importance. The objective of the study was to reduce the total run time of Amino Acid Analysis by implementing both a column temperature gradient and a linear buffer gradient using HPLC with Post-column derivatization.
If you would like a copy of either or both of these posters or any additional information  about our products, please feel free to send us an email or give us a call:

Phone: Toll-free: 800-654-3330 Direct: 650-694-6700

Dinner on the canal in “Venice”