Informed Choice
The Natural Products Association (NPA) has formed a partnership with globally-recognized testing program Informed-Choice to help supplement manufacturers in the USA minimize the risk of contamination with substances banned in sport by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The extensive sports testing program gives athletes the added confidence to know that the products they use to train and compete contain only the ingredients that are listed on the label.
The partnership will give NPA members preferential access for their manufacturing facilities to become Informed-Choice Certified Sites, enhancing the levels of quality assurance across the US supplements industry.
The NPA and Informed-Choice expect this new partnership to increase the number of Informed-Choice Certified Sites across the USA in a move to improve compliance with federal standards and protect consumers from products contaminated with adulterants. The Informed-Choice certification program has received recent success in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Japan, and is expanding to meet growing demand in North America.
UL
UL, a global safety science leader, partnered with NPA to certify dietary supplement makers are following federal guidelines and regulations – Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) – that are an essential part of the government’s oversight of the industry. As part of this collaboration, UL’s auditors will be trained in the NPA GMP standard, as they will administer the certification program, the audit function and the final decision on whether the product meets the standard to achieve compliance. Furthermore, NPA and UL have developed a co-branded, dietary supplement-specific badge logo program for use in product labeling, such as marketing materials, websites and social media for dietary supplements. The use of both the NPA and UL marks in its co-branded partnership will only be available for companies certified under the NPA GMP standard with audits conducted by UL. NPA is also allowing the use of the NPA mark on product labels for the first time. NPA’s partnership with UL also will open up new avenues for the industry to have its products tested for meeting label claims and absence of adulterants by a well-recognized and venerable dietary supplement and sports nutrition testing organization.
