Swiss Herbal Remedies Ltd - OTC Healthcare - Canada
Swiss Herbal Remedies Ltd
Strategic Direction
·
Responding to weak consumer
demand for many natural healthcare products and an increasingly tough
legislative environment in Canada, the company has greatly minimised the number
of products it sells in Canada to focus on just a few core varieties.
Key Facts
Full name
of company:
|
Swiss
Herbal Remedies Ltd
|
Address:
|
35 Fulton
Way, Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 2N4, Canada
|
Tel:
|
+1 905 886
9500
|
Fax:
|
+1 905 886
5434
|
www:
|
www.swissherbal.ca
|
Activities:
|
Manufacturer
of vitamins and dietary supplements
|
Source: Euromonitor International from
company reports
Company Background
·
Swiss Herbal Remedies Ltd is a
private Canada-based manufacturer of vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements.
The company was founded by Mr Rolf Zimmermann in 1950. The company is
headquartered in Toronto, Ontario – a province where Swiss Herbal Remedies has
the strongest positioning in Canada.
·
Swiss Herbal Remedies develops
and markets over 550 products under Swiss Natural Sources brand. It is one of
the major competitors in Canada to market leader CE Jamieson & Co Ltd.
While Canada is the company’s major market, it also markets its products in
over 20 countries worldwide.
·
The company has always worked
closely with the Canadian drug regulatory authorities, primarily Health Canada,
ensuring that its products have been approved and have obtained a drug identification
number – a sign of product safety. This helps the company to maintain a
competitive edge in a difficult operating environment defined by the new strict
Health Canada regulations and a significant drop in demand for many natural
healthcare products due to safety and efficacy concerns expressed by consumers.
·
To further help sales, Swiss
Herbal Remedies has cut down the number of SKUs and has focused on just a few
core products that sell well and/or show potential for further sales growth,
such as calcium supplements, vitamins and a number of combination formulas
marketed for digestion, memory, joint health and some others.
Competitive Positioning
·
In Canada, Swiss Herbal
Remedies remains the third largest manufacturer of vitamins and dietary
supplements. The company’s flagship brand is Swiss Natural Sources, which has a
solid presence in a variety of natural healthcare supplements. The company’s
efforts to ensure that the products meet Health Canada safety requirements,
even before the new regulations came into effect, helped the brand to maintain
its reputation and a strong position on the Canadian market. However, like many
other manufacturers of vitamins and dietary supplements the company has been
struggling with weak demand for many previously popular products. As a result,
in the past two years Swiss Herbal Remedies has cut down the number of SKUs and
has revamped its portfolio to concentrate its resources on marketing a smaller
number of products. The brand is still present in most Canadian retailers that
sell natural healthcare products, which helps to maintain a sufficiently high
level of brand awareness.
Product
type
|
% value
share
|
Rank
|
Vitamins
and dietary supplements
|
4.7
|
3rd
|
Source: Company research, trade interviews,
Euromonitor International estimates
