Through Quality Comes Success, with Amy Caplette, Vice President of Quality

Quality. It’s integrated into everything we do — from sourcing and testing ingredients, to manufacturing and meeting specifications. Every step of the way, quality is at the core of Thorne’s operations — and it’s one of my personal guiding principles.

I’m Amy Caplette, the Vice President of Quality at Thorne HealthTech. Not only is quality a priority for me at work, it also is in my personal life.

When I think about quality, I think about quality of life. That’s why, when I’m outside of work, I’m busy working on myself. I recently started focusing on my mental and physical health — whether that’s supplementing my lifestyle with Thorne products like Curcumin Phytosome, NAC, Collagen Plus, and Prebiotic +, just to name a few, or cooking healthy meals for my family and me. My routine holds me accountable with my diet and exercise goals and opens the door to self-improvement, which I’m always striving toward.

I’ve seen and heard from my co-workers, as well as my own experience, how Thorne supplements have a positive, long-lasting impact on our health.

This growth mindset I have in my personal life translates to what I do every day at Thorne.

Quality is everyone’s responsibility

As a supplement company, following regulations is vital to our operation. Nutritional supplements are regulated, and companies must comply with strict guidelines to ensure the quality of their products. It’s my job to ensure our compliance with every requirement at every level — from U.S. regulations all the way to international regulations of Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs). I serve as the point person for several external audits we undergo by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of Australia, and NSF International.

And we have an excellent audit track record at Thorne. We’ve had zero negative findings during the past three years in NSF audits, and we had no observations from the FDA during our most recent audit. We also have an A rating with the TGA, Australia’s equivalent to the FDA.

The TGA actually has the most stringent cGMP regulations and is often recognized as the toughest regulatory agency in the world. The TGA gave Thorne its current A rating during our most recent audit in 2022, which speaks volumes about who we are and our ethos as a company. Only a handful of U.S. companies have that certification.

Outside of audits, I lead our Quality teams: Quality Control Laboratories, Quality Control Inspection, and Quality Assurance. While at Thorne, I have and will continue to improve our quality systems through training, root cause analysis, corrective action and preventative action (CAPA) plans, and document control.

I’ve also helped with improvements to process controls and established the NSF certification and the internal audit program. In addition, I have helped transition multiple quality processes from paper to our enterprise quality management software called ETQ.

Every day, I push myself and my team to raise the bar on our quality and compliance processes. We want to remain the best company in our industry and continue to comply with domestic and international regulations. It’s critical for the success of my department and our very existence as a company, but it takes everyone at Thorne for us to achieve it. Every employee plays a part in ensuring that quality is built into our processes and products. Thorne’s commitment to quality not only protects consumers, it also demonstrates our commitment to our friends, family, and customers who use Thorne products.

Quality is NSF Certified for Sport®

Although I’m responsible for multiple important moving pieces, throughout my 20-plus years in the industry, I’ve found that I really thrive under pressure. That was a realization I had back in 2015 when I led perhaps the most rewarding project of my career — Thorne’s NSF Certified for Sport initiative, which led to our certification.

What is NSF Certified for Sport? It’s a global program through NSF International that rigorously tests and certifies each lot of a supplement that we manufacture to ensure each lot meets the highest safety standards so athletes can train with the peace of mind knowing they aren’t ingesting any of the 200-plus substances banned from athletic competition. If we make 10 lots of a product during the year, then samples of all 10 lots are sent to NSF for testing and certification.

A product that is NSF Certified for Sport ensures safety for athletes of the highest caliber — we’re talking professional athletes and Olympians. This is the only independent, third-party certification recognized by top sports organizations like the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, MLB, UFC, and the NHL. Other sports governing bodies — including the NFL, NBA, PGA, NASCAR, and Ironman, among many others — recommend their athletes take products that are NSF Certified for Sport.

As you can see, this isn’t just any certification — we must invest time, money, resources, and effort into earning this prestigious distinction. And our NSF Certified for Sport product line is always growing as we go through the certification process for the new sports performance products we launch each year.

The reason our 2015 push was so special was because that was the first time we undertook the certification process — and we did it with more than two dozen products simultaneously. I look back on that and I’m proud of everything my team and I were able to learn and accomplish. It was truly a team effort.

Quality is building our community

That’s not the only team moment that makes me smile. Beyond day-to-day operations, I often think about Thorne’s positive impact within our greater community. Thorne employees generously donate their time and money through community projects and regularly give food donations to our company-sponsored Blessing Box, which helps those in need. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thorne employees made more than 1,000 care kits and distributed them to homeless members of the community and to low-income families.

Our common goal is to make people’s lives better, and I think that’s powerful for bringing the community closer together.

Volunteering has made me thankful for my strong connections and the sense of community I have. More than anything, I enjoy spending time with my family. Some days, that could mean an activity as simple as walking around the neighborhood or getting together for board game night. On other days, we could be exploring South Carolina and all that the surrounding states have to offer.

Again, it all goes back to how I approach my quality of life.

—

This article is part of an ongoing series from Thorne HealthTech’s Medium blog, where we showcase the individuals behind Thorne’s approach to developing and delivering health and wellness solutions.