Council of Canada chooses NSF for supplements testing

The SCC backing came after NSF submitted to a field audit and quality systems audit to evaluate its ability to, “perform specialized testing for banned substances.”​

This included a review of documentation, records, personnel qualifications, training programs, as well as extensive interviews with NSF staff.

"This scope extension enables NSF to play an important role in assessing the safety of these types of supplements,”​ said SCC Executive Director, John Walter.

“Their accreditation by SCC demonstrates to clients and consumers that they place a high value on third-party verification of their work, and that they have the competencies required to perform this type of testing.”​

Edward Wyszumiala, general manager of NSF International’s Dietary Supplement Certification Programs added: “Making supplements safer for athletes and consumers is an essential part of our public health and safety mission. We developed the only American National Standard for dietary supplements and this accreditation expansion will also help make sure dietary supplement and other nutritional products are meeting safety and quality requirements.”​

Certification requirements include:

• Label claim review to ensure what’s on the label is in the bottle.
• Toxicology review verifies product formulation and marketing claims
• Contaminant review to ensure that there are no undeclared ingredients or unacceptable levels of contaminants in the product
• Facility inspection, two Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) audits annually
• Ongoing monitoring to verify continued compliance

In an interview conducted after initial publication of this story, Wyszumiala told NutraIngerdients-USA.com that the SCC tie-up, along with its NSF’s Certified for Sport program, were delivering the kind of results that had seen many sporting organizations alter their former prohibition stance to all supplements.

“We always need to be on the look out for outliers and economically motivated adulteration (EMA) but in the past five years I have seen a marked improvement in the quality of supplements because of additional testing and certification requirements and the major sporting bodies are recognizing this,”​​Wyszumiala said.

NSF has a sports list that contains 74 approved products that athletes can use with total assurance.

He said most of NSF’s business was conducted in the US, but its international presence was growing with links like the Canadian one as well as an expanding presence in places like China.