I Found a Chinese Factory Making 6 Million Supplements a Day

We flew to southern China to tour a supplement factory — and it turned out to be nothing like we expected.

Acorn (橡果美健) makes the peptides, dummies, collagen, vitamin drinks and powders that end up on shelves all over the world under other companies’ names. Eight storeys. A fully automatic liquid production line, developed by their own CEO, that runs from one end of the building to the other with nobody standing on it. On a big order, they told me it puts out six million units in a single day.

But the production floor wasn’t even the strangest part. There’s a rooftop garden where every plant is an actual ingredient, with QR codes so customers can see what’s going into their products. There’s an R&D building with a Harvard-credentialled professor consulting on the formulas. And there’s a room I can only describe as a museum about being overweight — complete with a bin you throw your body insecurities into. I threw my belly in. I missed the first time.

Here’s the thing most people don’t realise: over 65% of new supplement brands don’t manufacture anything themselves. They design a label and send it to a building like this one. So if you take supplements, there’s a good chance something in your cupboard started somewhere very close to what you’re about to see.

Huge thanks to the Acorn team for opening their doors and showing me around properly.