Cosmax Pet opens new factory in Jeungpyeong-gun, quadrupling production capacity

Cosmax Pet, the pet health and beauty original development manufacturing (ODM) arm of Cosmax Group, said Wednesday it has begun full operations at its new factory in Jeungpyeong-gun, North Chungcheong Province.

The company plans to expand production capacity to more than four times its previous level in response to growing demand in the pet healthcare product market, while building a flexible dosage-form manufacturing system to attract new customers at home and abroad.

Cosmax Pet signed an investment agreement with Jeungpyeong-gun last October to relocate its production facilities from its existing factory in Goesan, also in North Chungcheong Province, and invested a total of 40 billion won ($27 million) in constructing the new plant.

The new factory is a specialized production base focused on pet nutritional supplements and functional treats. Its production floor is more than four times larger than the Goesan facility, and it is equipped to strengthen integrated ODM capabilities spanning product planning, ingredient sourcing, formulation development, manufacturing and quality control.

Cosmax Pet said the new equipment raises both productivity and quality stability. The powder production line operates under a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) system applied at the level of human pharmaceuticals. Beyond its existing lineup of capsules, pellets, tablets and liquid-solid forms, the company has added production equipment for new dosage forms — including jelly-type, squeeze gel and liquid drop formats — enabling product development tailored to a pet's age, palatability and functional needs.

The company said the pet healthcare market has been diversifying beyond joint and digestive health into weight management, aging care, stress relief and immunity, making dosage-form competitiveness as important as functional efficacy. In response, Cosmax Pet is expanding its development of pet nutritional supplements and pet beauty products using more than 30 proprietary clinical and patented ingredients.

"The Jeungpyeong factory is a specialized production base for pet healthcare products and a hub for strengthening our dosage-form competitiveness and quality stability," said Jin Ho-jeong, chief executive of Cosmax Pet. "We will actively respond to the product development needs of domestic and overseas customers, drawing on our diverse formulation capabilities and proprietary ingredient strengths."

Meanwhile, demand for premium healthcare products in South Korea's pet industry is rising rapidly, driven by the spread of "pet humanization" — the trend of treating pets more like family members. Cosmax Pet is expanding its business by applying Cosmax Group's research and development expertise, accumulated through its human cosmetics and health supplement ODM operations, to the pet sector. According to a Samjong KPMG study, the domestic pet product market is projected to more than double from $6.2 billion in 2022 to $15.2 billion in 2032. Cosmax Pet's sales last year reached 8.5 billion won, an 84.3 percent increase from the previous year.