EAS is essentially a product development, marketing, and distribution company. The Golden, CO-based firm creates its products, designs the packaging and all the creative, but subcontracts the actual product manufacture and packaging to a network of copackers, typically makers of nutrition supplements and pharmaceuticals.
EAS vice president Roger Ulane calls the EAS business environment “the speed model.” The company’s time to market, he says, “from concept to the shelf is probably half to a third of what it normally takes other companies in our industry to achieve. We’re talking market research, about developing the product and its manufacturing process, creating the packaging, and establishing the supply chain—those are the steps at which we’re very adept.”
“Quite frankly, there’s a lot of capital tied up in manufacturing and packaging operations,” Ulane says. “The minute you buy a plant, you lock yourselves into that technology, location, and limitations. You constrain your ability to develop new products that utilize different or new processes.” On the international side, EAS manufactures products in Europe and New Zealand and distributes its products worldwide.
Ulane has a long history in manufacturing and packaging, from supervising a metal can-making line to working for companies that manufacture packaging and food processing machinery. This background served him well at EAS where he was initially in charge of sourcing new suppliers. “My previous experience gave me the ability to both determine our needs and assess a supplier’s ability to meet them,” he says. “Then it was a matter of selecting who were able and willing to work with our timeline, as we did with the Alpha bottle project.”
See the story that goes with this sidebar: EAS and partners show container dexterity
