April 22, 2017
The new self-regulatory Supplement OWL™ dietary supplement product registry offers transparent insight into ingredients and products in the marketplace.
April 20, 2017 – Northbrook, IL – With the wide variety of dietary supplements available on the market, industry stakeholders, regulators, retailers and consumers need resources to research and identify products, their ingredients and the companies who market them. The Supplement OWL dietary supplement registry, which launched on April 20, 2017, answers that demand.
“The industry needed to create greater transparency and communicate a complete picture of the marketplace for regulators, retailers, industry stakeholders, and ultimately, consumers,” said Erik Eberhart, UL Business Development Manager - Food, Beverage & Nutrition. “After researching options for a supplement product label registry, the Council for Responsible Nutrition’s (CRN) Board authorized the creation of a new, industry-administered product registry. They selected UL as their partner based on UL’s trusted reputation and longevity in the information exchange business.”
“Supplement industry leaders are pushing for more transparency and accountability in product documentation,” Duffy MacKay, N.D., Senior Vice President, Scientific & Regulatory Affairs at CRN, confirmed. “Proactively participating in a product registry demonstrates that manufacturers and retailers are committed to self-regulatory initiatives that can raise the bar for the dietary supplement industry.”
The Supplement OWL (Online Wellness Library) is hosted on UL’s industry-respected Prospector® platform. The database enables users to examine, evaluate and even compare product labels and documents. To access the database, visit supplementowl.ulprospector.com.
“We worked with the industry to ensure the existing platform met their needs, then also modified the OWL site to incorporate parametric searches meaningful to regulators, retailers, and the industry,” said Eberhart.
Manufacturers can share key information by persona, enabling information to be shared privately with regulators - all in a secure environment. An integral part of the Prospector platform, the UL Cybersecurity Assurance Program, offers trusted third party support in identifying security risks in products and systems.
Supplement OWL is currently accepting product labels. The registry will be updated with new manufacturers as they sign up. Contact Erik Eberhart at (913) 304-7841 or Erik.Eberhart@ul.com for more information.
About Supplement OWL™
The Supplement OWL (Online Wellness Library) is an industry-wide dietary supplement product registry that will help create a more accurate and complete picture of the supplement marketplace for regulators, retailers, and industry. The Supplement OWL will serve as an online resource for a variety of stakeholders to identify products, their ingredients and the companies who market them, and permit registry users to examine and evaluate labels and other product information.
The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), a Washington, D.C.-based trade association for the dietary supplement industry, is spearheading the effort by providing the initial funding and conceptual project management. UL is developing and administering the registry and the technology that will drive the Supplement OWL. Visit www.SupplementOWL.org.
About UL
UL fosters safe living and working conditions for people everywhere through the application of science to solve safety, security and sustainability challenges. The UL Mark engenders trust enabling the safe adoption of innovative new products and technologies. Everyone at UL shares a passion to make the world a safer place. We test, inspect, audit, certify, validate, verify, advise and train and we support these efforts with software solutions for safety and sustainability. To learn more about us, visit UL.com.
About CRN
The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), founded in 1973, is a Washington, D.C.-based trade association representing 150+ dietary supplement and functional food manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, and companies providing services to those manufacturers and suppliers. In addition to complying with a host of federal and state regulations governing dietary supplements and food in the areas of manufacturing, marketing, quality control and safety, our manufacturer and supplier members also agree to adhere to additional voluntary guidelines as well as to CRN’s Code of Ethics. Visit www.crnusa.org.