{"id":455527,"date":"2026-03-03T15:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T15:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/455527\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T15:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T15:34:08","slug":"suppco-launches-certification-to-verify-actives-in-dietary-supplements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/455527\/","title":{"rendered":"SuppCo launches certification to verify actives in dietary supplements"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new program complements SuppCo\u2019s TrustScore supplement quality rating system and builds on earlier testing initiatives, which revealed that roughly half of the top-selling supplements that the company bought off the shelf failed to meet basic label accuracy standards. <\/p>\n

\u201cSuppCo was born out of my own frustration trying to make informed decisions about supplements, and I quickly realized this wasn\u2019t a personal challenge but a systemic failure of the industry,\u201d Steve Martocci, co-founder and CEO of SuppCo, shared in a press release. \u201cWith TESTED by SuppCo, we\u2019re setting a clear, independent standard for transparency and accountability so people can finally trust what they\u2019re buying, and responsible brands can prove it.\u201d <\/p>\n

TESTED by SuppCo debuts in partnership with brands including Momentous, Thorne, Metagenics, Gaia Herbs, Designs for Health, Fatty15, Solaray, Niagen, Integrative Therapeutics and Pendulum. <\/p>\n

Certifying what\u2019s on the shelf and surfacing failures<\/p>\n

Jordan Glenn, head of science at SuppCo, said that the certification is a logical extension of the company\u2019s testing of some 44 popular supplements sold on Amazon last year, which found that roughly half of the products tested failed to meet basic label accuracy standards. <\/p>\n

It also adds another layer to the TrustScore feature, which shines a light on formulation decisions, manufacturing standards and transparency practices that signal quality before a product reaches a lab.<\/p>\n

\u201cTESTED tells you what\u2019s actually in the bottle you buy off the shelf,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cTogether they create a closed loop where TrustScore helps users identify products that should be trustworthy, and TESTED confirms whether that trust holds up in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ImageSuppCo purchases the product anonymously from the brand’s website just like a consumer would and submits it to independent testing. (SuppCo)<\/p>\n

SuppCo\u2019s initial testing rounds targeted creatine, NAD+, urolithin A and berberine supplements, with results showing that 22 of the products contained 0% to 3% of their listed active ingredients. Failings were particularly prominent in brands claiming the highest serving size, which SuppCo reported often concealed weak or absent active ingredients. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese aren\u2019t borderline misses of \u2018close enough\u2019 results, they\u2019re evidence of breakdowns at nearly every level of quality control, from raw ingredient sourcing to final formulation verification,\u201d SuppCo stated in its 2025 testing retrospective. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether the cause was manufacturing shortcuts, supplier variability, lack of internal testing or intentional deception somewhere in the supply chain, the end result was the same: products that made confident claims yet delivered almost none of what they promised.\u201d <\/p>\n

TESTED by SuppCo submits all products for testing through an independent ISO 17025\u2013accredited laboratory, and those that meet or exceed 95% of their labeled active ingredient claims earn certification. All results, regardless of certification status, are posted on SuppCo\u2019s product pages so that consumers can make informed decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith over 650,000 users actively tracking their supplement routines on SuppCo, certification results, including failures, are surfaced directly to the people making purchase decisions,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cThat visibility is an important complement to existing certifications, which are valuable but were not designed with a direct consumer audience in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Testing is then repeated annually to ensure compliance, and products that do not meet the standard are guided through remediation before being retested. Brands pay a certification fee to cover the cost of independent testing, program operations and licensing. <\/p>\n

Overcoming the structural issues, closing a \u2018meaningful loophole\u2019<\/p>\n

SuppCo is not the first company to monitor the marketplace for supplements that fall short of labeling and identity standards, particularly as the focus on self-regulation and adherence to good manufacturing practices<\/a> intensifies in the supplement space.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe supplement industry is at an inflection point,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cConsumer expectations are rising, regulatory scrutiny is increasing and independent verification is becoming a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that brands partnering with TESTED at launch understand that transparency is the only durable competitive advantage in a category that is only getting noisier. Here, verification, accountability and transparency are baseline, and brands that build quality into their operations and prove it independently define the category at scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy for brands to talk about quality and boast big claims about their products, but it\u2019s much harder to prove it,\u201d said Jeff Byers, CEO of Momentous. \u201cWe chose to participate in TESTED by SuppCo because trust and accountability are how this industry moves forward. Transparency should not be optional and the brands that stand behind their products, like we do, should be willing to step up to the plate and prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like ConsumerLab, NSF International and the United States Pharmacopeia before it, SuppCo is on a mission to ensure and seal supplement label accuracy, identity, purity and quality but presents its certification as resolving a fundamental structural issue in how testing is done. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost existing certifications rely on manufacturer-submitted samples or tests from production lots,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cTESTED purchases products anonymously, off the shelf, after normal retail aging, the same way a consumer would. That distinction closes a meaningful loophole where a product can pass a certification test using a carefully selected lot and still underdeliver in the bottle a consumer actually opens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Companies in the space\u2014and none more prominently than natural product manufacturer NOW Foods<\/a>\u2014have also conducted their own testing of supplements largely purchased on Amazon and identified wide-ranging supplement labeling and potency problems.<\/p>\n

Through its industry self-policing program, NOW has conducted 19 rounds of testing of \u201cno name brands\u201d purchased on Amazon since 2017. Ingredients monitored include St. John\u2019s Wort, methyl B-12, SAM-e, resveratrol, berberine, astaxanthin, bromelain, magnesium glycinate, quercetin, CoQ10, glutathione, curcumin, phosphatidyl serine, acetyl-l-carnitine, alpha lipoic acid and creatine. <\/p>\n

In most cases, NOW described the results as \u201calarming\u201d, \u201cabysmal\u201d or \u201cpersistent\u201d, raising multiple red flags and warnings of buyer beware. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new program complements SuppCo\u2019s TrustScore supplement quality rating system and builds on earlier testing initiatives, which revealed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[8421,49093,41668,101346,33453,20619,5237,164373,7552,7553,164374,20733,29366,102,86734,3247,7554,11620,105,6591,164375,6636,75911,14143,305,306,38973,9479,56,54,55,17706,4884,151995],"class_list":{"0":"post-455527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-approval","10":"tag-building","11":"tag-certification","12":"tag-clinical-trials","13":"tag-drug","14":"tag-drug-development","15":"tag-exterior","16":"tag-fda","17":"tag-fda-approval","18":"tag-fda-approved","19":"tag-federal","20":"tag-food-additives","21":"tag-health","22":"tag-health-and-human-services","23":"tag-health-care","24":"tag-hhs","25":"tag-landmark","26":"tag-maryland","27":"tag-medication","28":"tag-naval-ordnance-laboratory","29":"tag-nutrition","30":"tag-outdoor","31":"tag-park","32":"tag-policy","33":"tag-regulation","34":"tag-restricted-area","35":"tag-trees","36":"tag-uk","37":"tag-united-kingdom","38":"tag-unitedkingdom","39":"tag-urban","40":"tag-vaccine","41":"tag-vaccine-development"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}