NSF Announces Certifications, Services

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--NSF International announced that its NSF Dietary Supplements Certification Program certified its first ingredient, D-Glucosamine HCL, for WellAble Group Marine Biological & Chemical Plant (www.wellable.com). Pharmore Ingredients (www.pharmoreingredients.com), a significant distributor of the ingredient, assisted WellAble in the NSF product and plant certification process.

NSF also awarded its first good manufacturing practices (GMP) registration to Arizona Nutritional Supplements (www.aznutritional.com). NSF recently entered into a strategic alliance with the National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA) allowing NSF to accept the NNFA GMP audit for contract manufacturers. NNFA conducted a plant audit at the Arizona Nutritional Supplements facility to verify its compliance with GMPs. "We're very excited to be the first GMP Certified Nutritional Contract Manufacturer to use the NSF Registration Mark," said Greg St. Clair, director of sales and marketing at Arizona Nutritional Supplements. "We've worked extremely hard to make sure that our company was ready for this opportunity and especially identified NSF as a well-established and credible organization."

NSF is also offering a consumer-focused mark for manufacturers to place on NSF-certified products. The use of the mark is voluntary for manufacturers of NSF-certified consumer products such as dietary supplements, bottled water and residential equipment. The mark includes the NSF logo, the words "independently certified" and the NSF Web site (www.nsf.org). "NSF is pleased to offer its customers an enhanced mark that more clearly communicates to consumers the value of NSF certification," said Dennis Mangino, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer.

Further, NSF launched the Athletic Banned Substances Verification Program as a portion of its Dietary Supplement program. The new portion is designed to detect the presence of substances banned by the International Olympic Committee in dietary supplements, including stimulants, narcotics, anabolic agents, diuretics and other banned substances.

Finally, NSF announced an online subscription service that gives access to the NSF standards development process. Subscribers can review NSF draft standards, conference call dates, meeting agendas and information about issues discussed by specific joint committees and task groups.