Vital cog in wellness: Entrepreneur behind medication that enhances good health

Ever curious about how those vitamins, supplements and health medication lining the shelves of your favourite health store are made?

Andrea Prytz is the person behind many capsules and tablets that deliver health and wellness by the dose. From her East Rand facility called SA Capsule Filling, she cranks out more than 80 000 capsules and tablets a month.

Supplementary health

But supplementary health medication was not always Prytz’s vocation. She’s got two jobs. Originally trained as an accountant, her sortie into capsule filling and complementary medicine began through a personal connection.

“For 10 years before I started doing finance, I worked for my father,” she said. Her dad imported the encapsulations that pharmaceutical companies then filled with medicine, but challenging times presented themselves when big pharma cut out local production and started importing filled products instead.

Prytz had started her own successful accounting practice, But after her father’s death some years ago, she took the reins of the business and sought out solutions and new markets to preserve her dad’s legacy.

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Health market

The supplement and complementary health medication market presented an opportunity.

“There was a demand in the market,” she said, which led her to start her own capsule manufacturing company in 2019. Her company not only fills capsules, but also sources raw ingredients for clients based on their ingredients.

She then uses her dad’s business as a key cog in the supply chain. In the beginning the company ran from her home with a single employee. Her team has expanded and the business has flourished, something she attributes to hard work and adaptability.

 “I can’t complain. In today’s times, with businesses struggling, it’s amazing,” she said. Prytz moved premises to a larger site recently and invested in equipment to grow capacity. At the request of a client, she added tablet pressing to her range of products and now plans to acquire effervescent-tablet manufacturing machinery.

“I didn’t think I would be doing this with part of my life,” she said, but she loves it. “There’s no other way than to be busy and always thinking of something, coming up with new ideas,” she said.

Destiny

It’s something she inherited from her father, who told her that as a woman she must never be dependent on anyone but be in charge of her own destiny. Being in the business of capsules and tablets also comes with a few curiosities and challenges.

 “We have a testing laboratory where we assist our clients to ensure that what goes to market is of good quality,” she said. Prytz tests ingredients too and ensures that claims of content in capsules that she makes are as stated on labels and websites.

Not all tests were successful, she said, noting an instance when bicarbonate of soda was an ingredient in a recipe, yet when encapsulated and bottled, it caused an explosion.

She’s also had clients approach her with all kinds of ideas, from encapsulating unconventional ingredients to psychedelic ones. It’s an interesting setup at SA Capsule Filling.

It’s clinical and all laboratory-like, while next door is the accounting office. Prytz is unconventional, an out of the box thinker and never seems to run out of energy.

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