AltaiFitoProduct, LLC. is established for the purpose of preprocessing of the natural plant raw materials of Altai Region. The enterprise is located in a unique and ecologically clean Siberian region, that of Altai. The climate of Altai Region is extreme continental, with short, but hot and dry summers (average July temperature equaling +26 °C +28 °C, maximum +36 °C) and cold winters (average January temperature equaling -27 °C -29 °C, minimum -42 °C). Ecological cleanness of the region has been preserved due to its remoteness from the large industrial centers. This helps the plants to accumulate a maximum of active substances and prevents from accumulation of the impurities characteristic of the territories with the developed industry and agriculture.

That is why the Altai sea-buckthorn is so highly rated in the world. From the very beginning, our enterprise has been making efforts to develop technologies which could help preserve the quality and purity of the laid-in berries and transmit these characteristics to the finished product. The berries are laid in and cleaned only manually. Right after laying-in, the berries are refrigerated and put for storage until processing time.

There are a number of methods of production of oil out of sea-buckthorn berries. In most of these technologies the whole berry is used, while it is known that the oil contained in the pulp of the berry differs by its characteristics from that contained in the berry seeds. At the same time, most of these technologies do not allow separation of these products. Besides, the most popular technologies either do not allow production of 100% natural sea-buckthorn oil (the method of diffusion by vegetable oils), or use corrosive organic substances (Freon, pentane, etc.). All these technologies including the so called 'cold expression method' imply the preliminary drying of the berries at the temperature of 50 °C-60 °C, which, as a rule, leads to reduction of content of some components. Overheating of the raw material may cause formation of cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

The technology we have developed provides production of 100% natural oil out of fresh pulp by means of centrifuge at the temperature not exceeding 40 °C, without any solvents or extra-agents applied. In addition, cooling of the berries instead of their heating in the process of production of oil out of the berry seeds ensures the quality of the finished product as well. Sea-buckthorn oil is a natural product thus; each produced lot has its own qualitative characteristics. The qualitative characteristics vary depending on the place of sea-buckthorn vegetation, on the weather conditions during the year and harvesting, on the raw materials storage and processing technologies. In Russia, the basic qualitative characteristics are the following: the content of carotinoids (expressed in mg%) and the acid number expressed in KOH. The standard content of carotinoids should be not less than 300 mg% with the acidity not exceeding 13 KOH. The content of carotinoids in the concentrated product we offer is, as a rule, not less than 480 mg% (up to 720 mg% max) and the acidity is not more than 11 KOH (6 KOH min.). It is noteworthy that the presence of palmitoleic acid and cis-vaccenic acid helps to determine the authenticity of sea-buckthorn oil.