NOW Joins New Industry Label Database

An online database for supplement labels

Whether you’re a retailer or a consumer, if you’re familiar with dietary supplements then you know the marketplace is home to literally tens of thousands of products from hundreds if not thousands of different manufacturers. While the dietary supplement industry is well-regulated, there’s no official database where all this information is stored and easily accessible for review – until now.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), the leading trade association for the dietary supplement industry, and Underwriters Laboratories (UL), an independent safety science company, have joined together to create the Supplement OWL, or Supplement Online Wellness Database. The Supplement OWL launched on April 27, 2017.

NOW & OWL

NOW was one of the first companies to sign on to the Supplement OWL program, and our Quality Director, Aaron Secrist, is a member of the CRN Regulatory Affairs Committee, where the Supplement OWL was planned and discussed.

With more than 900 supplements, NOW is working through our extensive database of labels and submitting them to the Supplement OWL on a continual basis.

More about Supplement OWL

The Supplement OWL (Online Wellness Library) (www.supplementowl.org) is a dietary supplement product registry with voluntary participation. Any manufacturer of dietary supplements can submit their product labels for inclusion in this database as a way of self-regulation.

This initiative is intended to provide regulators, retailers, and the industry as a whole with a more thorough snapshot of the marketplace. The Supplement OWL was created to “serve as a resource for these audiences to identify products, their ingredients and the companies who market them, and permit registry users to examine and evaluate labels and other product information.”

Is the Supplement OWL for use by consumers?

The Supplement OWL was created primarily as an online database for regulators and other industry members seeking more complete information on dietary supplement products, what they contain, and specifics of their labeling. While consumers, and anyone with an internet connection, can access this database, it is not intended as a marketing tool. It is also not an online marketplace where you can purchase products, nor link to sites where manufacturers sell these products. The Supplement OWL truly is a voluntary, self-regulatory tool for the industry.

Why should manufacturers participate if it’s voluntary?

Dietary supplements are ingestible products, and manufacturers have a responsibility to do everything they can to help ensure the safety of their products and the consumers who use them. By sharing this basic information (labels), companies help regulators achieve a better understanding of the size and breadth of the market, which helps them better regulate the industry and product safety.

Self-regulation is something found only in industries that are mature, responsible, and care about the consumers who use their products. It’s a way of enhancing regulations that are already in place, and exhibits a willingness to impose obligations that help foster trust with regulators and consumers.

Finally, manufacturers who voluntarily submit their labels to the OWL database exhibit confidence in their adherence to regulations and their commitment to transparency. This in turn reinforces accountability and trust.