Always interesting to read these threads. I'm amazing at how easily the term "quality" is thrown around in regards to a company. The majority of companies in this industry are marketing companies. They have limited or no QC/QA. The smaller the company, the less compliant they're likely to be due to costs. People can be incredibly nice and good people, has nothing to do with their ability to make a quality product. In reality, 99% of consumers have no clue what goes on with the backside of the industry. It's pretty disgusting. There are multiple companies in this thread that have lost major lawsuits for QC/QA issues or significant government fines/punishment. Say you like a company because they're cool people, don't say quality unless you actually know what's going on behind the scenes.
One of my favorites is a huge company that bought rejected flavor of ours and used it in an amino product. We refused it because it impacted stability way too much. If you put an expiration date on something, you HAVE to have data showing that at time of expiration it's within 5% of label claims. This will be the #1 thing to bring down companies over the next 5 years. Lawyers have been throwing products in storage for the past year, waiting for expiration dates to come up. They'll test the product, it will fail and they can recover damages on each unit sold. It will be catastrophic for those impacted. When this starts happening, you'll find out REAL quick who's actually been doing QC