[zephyrsg]

That’s only a small part of it. The biggest issue is customer re-orders from the large distributors. Sometimes the product arrives to the customer in perfect condition and other times it’s compacted. That’s when customers complain. The product is always fresh, as there is high turnover and they keep low inventories, but when it looks different people get upset. Plus some of the big ones have been storing it upside down, despite all boxes clearly marked with “UP” arrows, which further makes the product look different. We’ll work on compaction. We can always drop the cases on the ground before shipping! 

[zephyrsg]

Thank you, Pharma. Unfortunately, I cannot control, though I’ve tried, how some of the large distributors ship the product. The smaller distributors have had absolutely NO issues with compaction, only the very large ones. It does seem to be the nature of the clay, as our ‘drop’ tests indicated, just wondering if there was something I could add to help this issue. If not, our best bet is to continuously try to educate our larger distributors. Compacting it before shipping, an interesting thought would be a challenge but one I will think about. 

[zephyrsg]

Thank you both and I’m not at liberty to disclose all the ingredients. Preservation is really not an issue unless you think adding a preservative will help with the shrinkage. Other than shrinkage in shipping, there are no problems with the product and it’s been out for several years. I am using wide-mouth plastic jars and when we’ve done ‘drop tests’ of the product, that’s when the shrinkage happens, so I’m thinking it’s more of a shipping/handling issue. I also do think the plastic jars are part of the equation, but as a farm animal product, I can’t move to glass. It does not appear to be heat or evaporation related, as a lot of our product is used in areas of extreme heat and there are no issues with shrinkage. I’ve gotten some of the jars with shrinkage returned to me and once you push it down it pops back into shape easily. I might experiment with a different sealing system, but was hoping someone had an idea for an ingredient that would help the clay retain its shape. And if you do think adding a preservative would help the product retain its shape, I’m open to suggestions. Thanks!

[zephyrsg]

This is an animal product and there are no issues with the preservation. Rosemary, as well as all the other EOs in the formulation, are well proven to be antifungal and antibacterial, as well as an antioxidant. I’d like to prevent shrinkage from handling/shipping. Any suggestions would be appreciated.