At LifeVantage, we are overachievers. We provide the best products from the best company to the best people. Today we talk about the manufacturing process and how it is that we bring you products that not only meet the standards, but exceed them!

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates both finished dietary supplement products and dietary ingredients under the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act (DSHEA). This is a different set of regulations than those covering “conventional” foods and medicinal products.

Manufacturers and distributors of dietary supplements and dietary ingredients are prohibited from marketing products that are adulterated or misbranded. This means that these firms are responsible for evaluating the safety and labeling of their products before marketing to ensure that they meet all the requirements of DSHEA and FDA regulations. 

When it comes to dietary supplement manufacturing, there are requirements that a manufacturer must follow in order to comply with industry regulations. Some of these requirements are the same as those used in the pharmaceutical industry, including multiple verifications and signoffs during production. At LifeVantage, in addition to those standards, we conduct additional testing, auditing, and reporting in order to provide you with the highest quality products.

The FDA requires manufacturers to perform the following tests on finished goods: 

In addition to those required by the FDA, LifeVantage goes further and performs the following tests: 

After products have been manufactured, tested, and shipped to us by our suppliers, we use a third-party lab to test and verify that every batch of product meets our strict quality standards. Our testing takes place in a clean, laboratory environment following standard Good Laboratory Practices (GLPs) in order to avoid any potential environmental contamination. 

As part of the dietary supplement regulations, the FDA allows for “subset testing” (testing a representative number of samples), usually one in every five or ten lots of material received or produced. In developing a subset testing plan, a manufacturer uses statistical sampling to determine the amount of samples necessary to approximate the quality of the product. 

While subset testing may save an immense amount of time and money, here at LifeVantage we’re more interested in quality, than quantity – so we don’t perform subset testing. We want to ensure that everything we produce is of the highest quality. 

So we test every lot of every product. 

We refuse to use or sell products that do not meet our distributors standards.

The industry standard for auditing foreign suppliers is generally known as the “one up, one down” system. Manufacturers must know the safety information of who is supplying their materials (one down), and must also know who they supply materials to (one up). The industry standard follows three requirements (below). 

We improve upon these three requirements using a “total supply chain management” system to verify where every lot of raw material comes from and where we send our products. 

We want to assure that all aspects of our production are accounted for. That’s why we use a total supply chain management system; to verify exactly what is being produced and how it is getting to you. 

To ensure that no foreign material enters the manufacturing process, raw material manufacturers pass the material through mesh screens and magnets prior to packaging. These two processes help to ensure that no foreign matter enters the product. 

LifeVantage improves upon these practices by including additional procedures during the manufacturing process. LifeVantage audits our raw material suppliers and contract manufacturers to assure that: 

Our additional procedures ensure that no foreign materials have inadvertently entered the materials or production process. These additional measures implemented by LifeVantage provide you with the safest, most effective products possible. 

In the dietary supplement industry, the FDA mandates that we collect all health complaints and report all serious health complaints to the FDA through the  MedWatch system. LifeVantage meets this requirement by partnering with  SafetyCall , the “world’s largest 24/7 Adverse Event Call Center.” SafetyCall receives and reviews all of our health complaints, helps to evaluate and monitor trends, and provides assistance for complaints that require reporting to the FDA. This allows us to actively address any problems that arise.

LifeVantage has one of the most comprehensive quality assurance systems in the industry. LifeVantage is a pioneer in QA (quality assurance) to the point that other companies are now requesting the same level of quality from their manufacturers and suppliers. We are proud of what we’re doing to help raise industry standards and provide to you the safest, most effective products on the market.

* The views expressed in this article are those of the author s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of LifeVantage or any other agency, organization, employer or company

** LifeVantage’s Marketing team may from time to time publish blog articles reporting information and research from third-party sources. The views and opinions expressed by these third-party sources as reported in LifeVantage blog articles are those of the authors and experts quoted therein and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of LifeVantage.

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