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The entrepreneurial spirit flew high with Annie Eng when she was a 16-year-old reading the newspaper with her father in Malaysia.
Eng was born and raised in the Southeast Asian country. Her curiosity peaked one day after she read an article about tongkat ali, a flowering plant native to the region that supposedly provided older men a potent combination: anti-aging and sexual prowess.
Now 39, Eng believed a business that could cultivate the power of tongkat ali would be hit.
And though it took her more than 20 years, including a decade-long detour in Chicago, where she was a stockbroker, Eng now lives her original entrepreneurial dream. She does that through her company, Bradenton-based HP Ingredients. The firm's flagship product is LJ100, a trademarked, proprietary botanical extract for men made from tongkat ali. Eng calls it “herbal Viagra.”
Annual revenues at HP Ingredients are up 59% since 2009, from $2.2 million to $3.5 million in 2011. The eight-employee company is based in a 6,600-square-foot warehouse near downtown Bradenton, just south of McKehcnie Field, spring training home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Eng projects another double-digit percentage growth year in 2012. “The recession,” says Eng, “still really hasn't hit us.”
The firm, furthermore, is now about more than tongkat ali. Indeed, its niche is in researching and developing, then manufacturing and distributing a full line of nutraceuticals — a wordplay on nutrition and pharmaceuticals. The FDA regulates the industry.
Eng launched the business in 2001, after she moved from Chicago to Bradenton with her family. The firm now sells more than 200 botanical extracts and a host of other herbal remedies directly to manufacturers and multi-level marketing firms.
It also manufactures and sells products under private labels to other manufacturers. In addition to tongkat ali, HP Ingredients has developed more than five other herbal extracts. The list includes remedies for blood sugar support, memory, pain relief, and weight management.
HP Ingredients works out of two countries. There's the Bradenton facility, which is essentially a storage and distribution hub. And there's also a $3 million extraction facility in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, that Eng co-runs. That's where the firm researches and tests products.
The research and development stage is one of Eng's biggest challenges. For one, the firm's scientists can't delve too far into pharmaceuticals, which are separately regulated. Says Eng: “There is a fine line between nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals these days.”
Also, the better the company does, the more Eng is approached to buy into new ideas. It's a time-consuming balance, to make sure she spends the right amount of time on the right potential products. In that way, the work isn't much different than Eng's past life in stocks, where she analyzed risk and reward regularly.
“We see people with a lot of unique ideas,” says Eng. “Sometimes something looks really good, but sometimes the research doesn't hold up.”
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