Cutting a Key Ingredient Cost by 50%

The client had run a request for quotes on several ingredients for an upcoming nutrients project. One of them, fermented iron, came back very high. It was a cornerstone of the project, so its price carried real weight in the numbers heading to the board.

The ingredient sat inside a much larger project. The client was moving more than 30 formulas to a new set of nutrients, taking roughly 19 ingredients out and bringing about 40 in, with board approval sought in October and on-shelf products targeted for transition by January 2028. The client's product requirements, including kosher certification and a fermented form of iron, also narrow the supplier field and raise material cost.

Our Approach

Izba pushed back on the quote and reopened it to a handful of vendors. We held the conversations with each one, compared the offers, and kept room to negotiate.

The pushback ran alongside the qualification work. The team planned to qualify 32 new ingredients over a 20-week period, using conditional qualifications to hold the timeline, and tracked each supplier through a weekly sync. It also weighed formulation choices, such as a 10% iron potency in tablets to hold total iron levels while reducing cost and avoiding new trials, and compared the cost of fermented against non-fermented iron. Supplier readiness work in September secured $109,000 a year in net savings, with a reminder that aging quotes had to be refreshed before piloting.

The Outcome

• The price came down from about $49 to $22–$26 a unit, with some room to move depending on final terms.
• About 50% lower supply cost on a key ingredient.
• Stronger numbers for the board, on a project where this ingredient was central.
• $109,000 a year in net savings secured through supplier readiness work on the same project.