Supplements
Skincare
Superfoods
Product Sets
These format changes are being applied across our entire range of supplements. Most products are now going out with the new format and over the next few weeks as we use up our current stock of products with the old style labels the roll-out of the new labels will be completed.
What is the reason for this?
Up until now we have designed and formatted our labels to comply with New Zealand regulations. However, our manufacturing processes are now governed by the new US FDA cGMP rules. The NZ regulations with regard to labels were not 100% compatible with the US FDA GMP rules and as such would not fully comply. On the other hand the new US labelling rules are acceptable in New Zealand, so, given that around 80% of our business is in the US we decided to ‘switch’ to the US labelling regulations so we are in complete compliance with all the FDA’s dietary supplement rules.
This has been a major undertaking and has been going on for months with our QA department in conjunction with a US based consultant who specialises in FDA regulations. What made it such a major undertaking was that we had to break down every ingredient into its component parts.
For example, we use the much more effective and bio-available form of Vitamin B6 called Pyridoxal-5-phosphate. Most manufacturers use the cheaper Pyridoxine, which is not as good. However, the Pyridoxal-5-phosphate has as the name suggests some phosphorous. So, we have to list the phosphorous as one of the ingredients in Total Balance.
Another example is Vitamin C. Previously we had listed the 200mgs of Potassium Ascorbate by itself. That is now listed within the Vitamin C ingredient, but only part of it (the ascorbate). The other part is Potassium. So instead of having it listed as a single ingredient it is split into two components, part under Vitamin C and the other part under Potassium.
Due to the large number of ingredients in Total Balance we are very limited in what we can put on the label and we were forced to include some groups of ingredients as a proprietary ‘blends’. As long time readers will know I am usually critical of proprietary blends as they can be misleading. So, to ensure that customers know what is in the blend we have set out each component of the blend in detail on the ingredient pages on our website, so there is full disclosure.
We are only listing the active ingredients on the bottle label. For example, often the gross amount of the ingredient is listed on dietary supplements labels. For instance, we use 50mg of Tea Polysaccharides 25%. For this ingredient we have only listed as 12mgs because that is the amount of the key active in that particular ingredient. Sometimes there are other important actives but they are not included in the net amount listed on the label.
I hope that this is not too confusing. If any aspects of these labels are not clear, please raise a question or make a comment here.
You can view the 'new' supplements facts on the website for the first new product label by going to the Ingredient page of Total Balance Women's Premium.
The day that we ship out products with the new labels is the day that we update the new info on the website. So, it is possible with some products that you order we may have the new label on the website when you receive it, but you may have the ‘old’ label as it was updated whilst your product was in transit. This is nothing to be concerned about because it is the same product. The only difference is that we are distributing a different batch…however all our batches are fresh and offer optimum efficacy.
Hi Murray…sorry about the small print on the label. You are right, it sure is hard to read…but you can ‘blow it up’ on the website. We were forced to go that small in order to fit everything on as required by the FDA.
Warren Matthews December 14 2010