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Testing in the Supplement Industry |
We've long bragged about our independent laboratory testing program for our nutritional supplements; however, most laboratories refuse to let their clients use lab test results for any external (public) purposes.
Why? They don’t want to answer questions about their procedures. Most labs (even some VERY well-known media darlings) won’t detail the methods they use (they say they are “proprietary”). However, there is no way to validate "proprietary" test results, some of which give false positives as well as false negatives!
Our Health Co-op, with our significant commitment to (and investment in) independent laboratory testing, has worked with a variety of labs (in four different states). We finally found a lab partner for keeps. Our lab partner has over 10 years experience in both pharmaceutical and supplement testing, and they document the peer-reviewed methods they use in testing each product submitted for testing.
This level of information is extremely unusual and demonstrates our lab's commitment to science and repeatable results (based on current best practices in testing). We've recently received permission to post our lab reports (again, unusual, and very exciting!). Meanwhile, here are some things our lab had to say about lab testing in general:
- Many companies do not test at all (common knowledge in the industry)
- Companies that do test, tend to test every fifth or sixth production run, once they establish a track record with a supplier
- Companies doing testing typically select 10% of the ingredients in a product (to test blending) and selection of which ingredient to test is random, after completion of a production run (i.e., the contract manufacturer or manufacturing organization does not know which items will be tested)
Right now, we're doing a lot more than just industry standard testing -- to establish our track record as serious players with respect to quality (our seniors count on us for their health, so quality is non-negotiable!). If you would like to send a note to the big "kat" (with compliments or questions), write to guido@ourhealthcoop.com.