William Frohring was brought on as part of the team with Gerstenberger and Ruh, and eventually became chief chemist on the project. The group's formula was based on diluted skimmed milk, with lactose and potassium chloride added to reach the human milk level. Among their novel contributions was to use mixtures of fats and oils rather than cream to duplicate human milk fat.
Experimental batches of SMA distributed to local pediatricians were well received. The group began getting orders for more. Frohring stepped forward as the business leader of the group. His idea was to give the patent of the formula to Babies Dispensary and Children's Hospital, and license the manufacture to Telling-Belle Vernon Dairy.
By 1919, Frohring was director of the laboratory at Telling-Belle Vernon Dairy, and had invented several pieces of laboratory and dairy processing equipment. In 1921, he was made a director and placed in charge of Laboratory Products Company, the company's new subsidiary to manufacture SMA, located in Mason, Michigan.
Laboratory Products Company diversified into the development of research into other newly identified biochemicals. Frohring recruited Albert Fredrick Ottomar Germann  to study carotene. The company went on to become the world's major supplier of carotene.
As an employee of the dairy, Frohring accumulated patents on a process for the production of soluble casein, an improved process for lactose production, a vitamin C concentrate from orange and tomato juice for addition to SMA, and a formulation called "Frohs Malted Chocolate Milk". The company was renamed the SMA Corporation, and added carotene concentrate, refined from palm oil, to its product line. Frohring set up a company to process the palm oil. He made his younger brother Paul (formerly sales manager for SMA Corporation), president and general manager. In 1939, SMA, its subsidiary, and all rights to the infant formula were purchased by American Home Products Corporation (AHPC). Frohring stayed on as president of the SMA Corporation, now owned by AHPC. He later became a director of AHPC.