NOW Foods

Now Foods Essential Oils Review

NOW Foods is a company that has been in business for more than 50 years. NOW Foods manufactures and distributes around 1400 products related to dieting, sports nutrition, all-natural foods and supplements and products for personal care as well. They’re one of the most well-known companies when it comes to essential oils and they have a large selection. In fact, the company is not only in the United States, it is based worldwide. Like many of the companies that do natural oils, they work on an MLM structure. That means they sell wholesale to their distributors who then sell retail to their customers.

 

NOW Foods Company History

The history of the company is fairly interesting. They began in 1948, when the founder, Paul Richard, purchased a company in Chicago for $900. That little company grew into one of the biggest providers of health products today. NOW Foods is a family-owned business and the company as it exists today actually began in 1968. They open their first retail store in 1962 and they have been expanding ever since. The difference between this and some of the other MLM structure companies that are out there is that retail stores are also distributors so they can buy wholesale and sell the brand in their stores. NOW Foods is one of the top-selling health products on the shelves of health food stores.

NOW Foods Kit Price Includes: Tea tree, orange, eucalyptus, lavender, peppermint oils Read Reviews We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

NOW Foods Manufacturing Process

Besides the corporate office, NOW Foods has two manufacturing facilities in the United States. One of them is in Bloomingdale, Illinois and the other in Sparks, Nevada. Like other manufacturers, they get there essential oils through a process of steam distillation. This requires a great deal of the plant that the essential oil comes from to be harvested because the yields are very low. NOW Foods also uses the cold press process in order to obtain essential oils from products like oranges, lemons and limes. In addition, there are some very fragile plants that essential oils come from that cannot be used in the steam distillation process. In this case, NOW Foods uses solvent extraction to obtain the essential oils.

NOW Foods Essential Oils Selection

When it comes to the essential oil selection of NOW Foods, they have a decent array of essential oils and related products. When it comes to pure essential oils they offer 67 different ones. But they also offer a selection of organics which is not nearly as wide as some of the other manufacturers,. However, they do have blends that they have created and tested, which total 21. Most of their oils are only offered in a single size of 1 ounce which is approximately 29 milliliters. NOW Foods does offer a number of related products as well such as Teas, Stevia substitutes, organic food and even pet food.

NOW Foods Purity of Essential Oils

When it comes to the quality of the product that NOW Foods provides, they have a very good reputation; in fact, NOW Foods has won several awards for high-quality products that they manufacture. Just in 2016 alone they won the Animal Wellness Magazine stamp of approval, were recognized by Remedies Magazine digestion awards and Whole Foods Magazine natural choice awards. There were also an editor’s pick for Taste for Life and won an award for prevention and the cleanest packaged food. Finally, they won the trailblazer award three times from Grocery Headquarters and Delicious Living beauty and body awards named one of their products best kid’s product of the year.

NOW Foods Website

The website is clean and easy to navigate but it doesn’t have the same feel as some of the other websites from brands featured here. They have an active twitter account with an average of five tweets per day, and the website is packed with information, even if it may not be as slick and visually appealing as some of the other websites. The navigation bar contains links to their various product lines including: supplements, personal care, sports nutrition, food, pet supplements and essential oils of course.

The sub navigation bar below each of those main categories is also pretty helpful when it comes to finding out about the product. But again there is nowhere to check price. The only option is to find a store near you. However, this is only true on the main site. There is a sub store called NOW-to-You that actually has the product’s prices and the shopping cart. Unless you know the URL, It can be difficult to find this website from the main NOW Foods website.

NOW Foods Essential Oils Price

While some essential oil companies will also offer the oils on their website at retail to people who aren’t distributors, this particular company chooses not to do that. There are no prices listed on any of the essential oils and instead the site directs you to find a retailer near you that carries the essential oils. Of course, this can be rather inconvenient to those who wish to order essential oils online from NOW Foods and aren’t able or willing to go to a retail store where they are sold. It is impossible to know for sure how much they are sold to their retail outlets and distributors, but the discount is likely around 30% to 50%.

NOW Foods Reputation

When it comes to reputation this company is going to do really well. While you can often find information about companies online that are blatantly negative, and reviews posted with the Better Business Bureau and other organizations that track whether or not a company is doing business legitimately, NOW Foods doesn’t have much out there in terms of negative feedback. There are a lot of positive reviews and while you can chalk some of them up to the fact that the person is a distributor and trying to promote their own business as well, there are a number of reviews from actual customers is what. Taking into consideration the nature of Internet reviews, you can be fairly certain that NOW Foods is a legitimate company that does business the right way.

NOW Foods Customer Service

When it comes to customer service, there are a few things that you can do. Of course, you can always look on things like the FAQ to find out if the answer to your question is there but if not NOW Foods has an email form that you can fill out on their website by scrolling to the very bottom and clicking ‘Contact Us’, which will then send your email to their customer service department. There are also telephone numbers listed for the corporate office the Western operations office in Sparks Nevada and the Midwest operations office in Bloomington Bloomingdale Illinois. Finally, it is likely that you purchased a product from a retail store. If that is the case you may be able to get a hold of that store’s customer service and resolve your problem.

NOW Foods Overview of Customer Reviews

When it comes to customer reviews, NOW Foods is pretty decent; most of the review sites that you will come across will rate NOW Foods and NOW products as between four and five stars. This is quite an achievement because it means that their products are high-quality and customers are almost always satisfied with them. Of course, with any company you’re going to have negative reviews. It is impossible to know if the person that purchased the product had a problem with a retailer or if their negative review somehow reflects upon NOW Foods. But with the overwhelming majority of reviews positive you can be certain that this company is good to work with.

Final Word on NOW Foods

You can look at the chart below to determine where this company is on factors like price, quality, selection and service. But the fact of the matter is, this is one of the better companies out there and even though their products are sold in retail stores rather than on their website, you can still look for their label when you shop at your local health food store or ask them to carry NOW Foods brand.

Major Essential Oil Brand Comparison Chart

Brand	Price	Quality	Reputation	Selection	Service	Reviews	Overall
DoTerra	Fair	Excellent	Fair	42 Oils	Excellent	Good	Good
Eden’s Garden	Good	Excellent	Excellent	150 Oils	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent
Mountain Rose	Excellent	Good	Excellent	112 Oils	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent
Miracle	Fair	Excellent	Excellent	20 Oils	Excellent	Good	Good
NOW Foods	Unknown	Excellent	Excellent	67 Oils	Good	Good	Good
Starwest	Excellent	Good	Excellent	70 Oils	Good	Good	Good
Young Living	Fair	Good	Fair	87 Oils	Good	Fair	Fair