| Out of Commitment to the Cause |
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| About 150 men and women at WALA are engaged in the manufacture of anthroposophical medicines and skin care products, including the Dr.Hauschka Rose Day Cream, a classic of modern skin care. Rose Day Cream consists of water, peanut oil, marshmallow extract, beeswax, extracts of avocado oil and St. John’s wort, shea butter, rose wax, lecithin, extracts of rose petals and rose hips and essential oils. So far so good. But how are these ingredients combined to make a cream? How exactly is Dr.Hauschka Rose Day Cream manufactured? |
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| Pharmacist Sabine Hockenjos Zogg, head of manufacturing at WALA since November 2004, and her colleague Walter Janetschek tell us about the day to day challenges of manufacturing from the smallest quantities of a special anthroposophical medicine to several tonnes of creams and ointments. |
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Its manufacture starts with
the harvesting of the rose blooms |
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Does WALA only produce skin care products here in Eckwälden, Rose Day Cream for example, or are the WALA medicines produced here as well? |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: All products for all three brands - that is WALA medicines, WALA Vita preventive health products and Dr.Hauschka skin care products - for more than 40 countries are manufactured here in Eckwälden and then shipped all over the world. Rose Day Cream is one of them, of course. |
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Walter Janetschek: Its manufacture starts in the garden with the harvesting of the rose blooms. The petals are processed to obtain an extract which is then stored. We have to wait a year before further processing this rose petal extract, that means we have to plan exactly in advance and decide at harvest time already what quantities we will want to manufacture later. |
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But what happens if it turns out a year later, for example, that the demand for a certain product is twice that originally anticipated? |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: We have already allowed for this, of course; we have reserves in stock. In the plant laboratory, for example, we produce twice to four times the required amount so that we can absorb such fluctuations. But we also have to bear in mind that there may be no harvest the following year or that the yield might be smaller than planned. Weather, pests and diseases can also lead to diminished yields and this all has to be allowed for. |
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So now you have all the ingredients you need for the Rose Day Cream. What happens next? |
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| Walter Janetschek: Various waxes go into the Rose Day Cream. These are placed in a large mixer together with the oil and heated. At the same time a water phase is heated in a separate vessel to which the extracts of rose petals and rose hips are added. This water phase is then combined with the wax phase in the mixer. |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: Then a soy lecithin is added as emulsifier to ensure that the water and the oil phase stay mixed with each other. After the ingredients of the Rose Day Cream have been heated, stirred and homogenised they have to be cooled again while stirring. Then we add a mixture of essential oils. It is important to keep stirring the mixture during the cooling phase because otherwise the phases of the cream may separate. There is always a danger that some waxes might cool and solidify more quickly than others. When the cream has cooled it is filled into tubes and boxed. |
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Who tells you how much to manufacture and when? |
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| Walter Janetschek: The planning department draws up rough plans for six weeks in advance. Two weeks before the start of production of the product in question at the latest the fine planning is completed. Fine planning means that each day is fixed. In the weighing room we weigh out the ingredients for a product that might be manufactured or filled ten days later. And then there are products which have to mature for two or three weeks before we can pass them on for filling. |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: This is a very complex affair, particularly as we manufacture so many different products. And, on top of that, there are different versions of each product for different countries. In the case of the Rose Day Cream, for example, we might fill two thirds for Germany, followed by Switzerland, Holland, the USA. |
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We manufacture our skin
care products to the high
standards required for the
manufacture of pharmaceuticals |
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How many different preparations does WALA manufacture? |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: We have 800 different WALA medicines and about 200 skin care products including the different export versions. And then we also have many different dosage forms. The largest quantities we produce are in the ointments and liquids sector but in the case of the pharmaceuticals the globule and ampoule dosage forms are far more important. All medicines are manufactured in conformity with the regulations for the manufacture of pharmaceutical products. We are monitored regularly by the authorities to check that we follow the rules of Good Manufacturing Practice – a specific, very comprehensive quality assurance system. |
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Do such stringent rules exist for the manufacture of skin care products too? |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: No, but since we produce all the skin care products here in Eckwälden this means that our skin care products are manufactured to the same high standards as our WALA medicines. One of the reasons for this is that our skin care products contain no preservatives and that we therefore need an aseptic environment. Rose Day Cream, for example, must not be left to stand for a long time. It is immediately filled into tubes so that it comes into contact with the air as little as possible. |
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This is reassuring for the consumer …. |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: Yes, and it is a particular challenge for us. We are constantly working on improvements. We want to be sure that, whoever is operating the machine, the quality produced will always be the same. And then there are the many different products and many different batch sizes which constantly present us with new challenges. We might produce just a few kilos of a product or several tonnes. Sometimes we only have to fill 50 vials of an essence. By the time we've set up the machine for this, the five litres we need have almost been used up in the machine. We can't even think of performing such processes on the large machines. |
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The idea of WALA is to ensure the
supply of medicines for
anthroposophical medicine. |
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Why do you fill such small quantities anyway. Surely that can't be cost-effective? |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: We produce these small quantities because we want our range to include medicines for as many medical conditions as possible so that doctors can use these as a basis for their therapy. In such cases cost-effectiveness is secondary. After all, the idea of WALA is to ensure the supply of medicines for anthroposophical medicine. The doctors practising anthroposophical medicine need these preparations. There are many preparations which are only needed very rarely, for example there is one ampoule solution of which we only manufacture one litre. We then dispense this into one-millilitre ampoules and in the end we have around 800 ampoules. This is very laborious and in the end we have just 80 boxes. |
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If such a preparation is used so rarely then it could be years before these 80 boxes are sold…. |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: Yes, that might well be the case. But if a doctor needs this medicine for a particular patient in a particular case then it is important that it is available. We realize this idea. On the other hand, when it comes to the Dr.Hauschka skin care products we sometimes produce three or four tonnes at a time. Maintaining this wide range of medicines and skin care products, switching from very small to very large quantities, that is a big challenge. |
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WALA has its own environmental management system and has won various environmental awards. What impact does this environmental commitment have on manufacture? |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: We always try to remain true to ourselves. For example we optimise the use of water. In the washing sector we use a lot of water, one washing cycle for the containers or vats uses several hundred litres of water. We are constantly optimising the programs of our washing plants in order to save water. We also try to optimise the dosage of the detergents we have to use to clean the containers. We want to keep waste water contamination as low as possible. The waste water from manufacturing is processed in our own waste water processing plant before it enters the sewage system. |
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WALA also looks carefully at where the ingredients for its preparations come from, uses biodynamically cultivated plants wherever possible …. |
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| Walter Janetschek: We have the plant raw materials we use largely under our control. They come either from our own medicinal herb garden or from vetted contractual partners. We sometimes process large quantities of plants, sometimes several tonnes at a time. The largest amount we need is for the anthyllis essence. This year we processed more than three tonnes of plants for this. |
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Anthyllis is the wild flower we know as kidney vetch. How does WALA find more than three tonnes of kidney vetch growing in the wild? |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: Last year collection in the wild was scarcely possible because there was practically no wild kidney vetch around. So we cultivated a large amount of kidney vetch on the Sonnenhof, WALA's own farm. But this year most of the kidney vetch came from the wild. |
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Collecting wild flowers must be quite a pleasant job…. |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: Well, collecting more than three tonnes of flowers, and inspecting every single plant as it is picked …. |
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| Walter Janetschek: Of course the gatherers don't pick three tonnes at once, only about 500 kilos at a time. The flowers must not be picked too far away and they must be here by noon if possible because otherwise the plant is no longer fresh by the time it arrives here. First the kidney vetch is inspected to see whether it is really what we want. Then the plant is chopped up and treated with water and alcohol to produce an anthyllis essence, which we then use as an ingredient in Facial Toner for example. |
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Disseminating
anthroposophical medicine |
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What does WALA mean to you personally? |
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| Walter Janetschek: When I started working at WALA twenty years ago there was still quite a family atmosphere, everyone knew everyone. Things have changed now, but the atmosphere in the company is still great. I simply enjoy coming here to work. We have a lot of freedom and leeway. But this also means recognizing one's own obligations and taking on personal responsibility in the service of the whole. I could list a lot more positive things here but to put it in a nutshell: I'm glad that life has brought me to this corner of the world. |
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| Sabine Hockenjos Zogg: What attracts me is the product range. As a pharmacist I went into complementary medicine immediately after graduating. My first jobs were with homeopathic companies and I have been working in this sector all my life. But even within this sector WALA is a very special company because it has a philosophy which is really lived at all levels of the company. I am fascinated by the WALA idea of using the company to disseminate anthroposophical medicine. But the corporate model of WALA, with the WALA foundation as owner, is also something I find convincing. We have to work cost-effectively and efficiently, we have to produce high-quality products, everything is done to very high standards but out of commitment to the cause and not out of commitment to maximising profit for just a handful of people. Here everyone shares the profit and each person knows that he or she makes their own decisive contribution to the success of this idea. For me WALA is a company where I feel I can make a genuine contribution and where my work really makes a difference. |
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The interviewer was Karen Hartmann |
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Photos: Deniz Saylan, Silicya Roth |
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