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All About NSF: Supplement Certification and Beyond

By Heather Davis, MS, RDN, LDN

Many dietitians may be familiar with dietary supplements or other food and health products stamped by one of NSF’s labels or certification marks. What does an NSF certification entail? What should dietitians know about what NSF certification conveys to consumers? RDs may also find themselves involved in leveraging tools and other services and certifications provided by NSF to clients through directly or indirectly participating in the many food systems, institutions, and other regulatory bodies collaborating with NSF.

NSF, formerly known as the National Sanitation Foundation, has been around for quite some time, emerging in 1944 to help provide independent quality assurance for a plethora of products. For RDs, perhaps most well-known is the role NSF plays in assuring quality and compliance in various dietary supplements or certain food products; however, the reach of NSF extends far beyond this realm. NSF is a World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Food Safety, Water Quality, and Medical Device Safety. Expanding through the years to encompass a wide range of services relating to quality assurance, you can now find NSF offering the following:

  • food safety training, auditing, customized assurance, certification, research and development, and practical guidance to businesses;
  • supply chain management, including protecting against food fraud, mislabeling, improving regulatory compliance, and sustainability consulting;
  • audits and certification standards for animal wellness and welfare, including seafood-related aquaculture sectors;
  • audits and certification standards for ethical trading and working conditions;
  • sustainability claim verification, life cycle assessments, and reporting;
  • certification for products and facilities in nutritional, cosmetics, personal care, and over-the-counter product industries;
  • life science consulting in pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device sectors to help companies bring products to market and maintain compliance and quality;
  • regulatory guidance;
  • management system certifications;
  • quality, performance, and safety testing for water products and systems as well as conducting system design; and
  • transport supplier certifications and compliance.

NSF ISO/IEC 17025-accredited testing laboratories host teams of chemists, microbiologists, and toxicologists across North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and China who work with clients in the food, water, dietary supplement, medical device, and pharmaceutical industries to assess products and offer guidance on regulatory compliance.

Dietary Supplements and Functional Foods

Dietitians seek ways to identify brands and products with reliable quality assurance backing them up, and the NSF mark or logo on the front of packaging has become a trusted indicator. NSF certifies dietary supplements to NSF/ANSI 173, which is the only American National Standard for testing and certifying dietary supplements. Alongside dietary supplements, food products like protein bars and powders, hydration, and energy drinks can be certified. NSF also offers safety and regulatory support for food and dietary ingredients, including GRAS, NDI, food contact notifications, and a unique upper-limit determination service for natural products and botanicals.

Evaluating the composition of dietary supplements and ingredients is a chief priority, which includes ensuring that product labels accurately reflect the ingredients present, both in type and amount. Contaminants impacting health are also assessed by NSF, including heavy metals like lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and chromium (VI). Additional microbial testing evaluates the presence of yeast and molds (and mycotoxins), Enterobacteriaceae, and specific pathogens like Salmonella spp, E. coli, and Staphylococcus aureus. Pesticide residues are also often included in the testing repertoire.

As part of an ongoing effort to ensure compliance beyond a single testing event, NSF also conducts annual audits of those participating in its certification programs and annually retests certified products to guarantee continued quality and compliance.

Certified for Sport

For an additional layer of testing relevant to athletes, NSF offers a Certified for Sport program, which evaluates dietary supplements, functional foods, cosmetics, and personal care products for substances banned by major sporting organizations. This helps athletes, dietitians, coaches, and consumers make more informed decisions when choosing sports supplements to reduce their risk of doping sanctions. NSF screens for over 292 substances, including steroids, selective androgen receptor modulators, stimulants, beta-agonists, diuretics, growth hormone-releasing agents, and hormone metabolic modulators. Products Certified for Sport must also be certified to one of NSF/ANSI 173, NSF 229, or NSF 527 to ensure their contents match their claims.

Certified for Sport is currently the only independent, third-party certification program recognized by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the Canadian Football League. This has made it an appealing certification for brands looking to primarily market to athletes; however, many others may benefit by reducing exposure to these potentially detrimental substances.

Food Safety in the Supply Chain

Addressing multiple facets of the food supply chain, NSF also provides comprehensive options for certification, auditing, and development opportunities for companies. The Safe Quality Food (SQF) Program is a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) benchmarked food safety standard based on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP). NSF is accredited to perform audits against different certified program owners, including SQF, IFS, and BRCGS. HACCP is the internationally recognized risk-based system for managing food safety throughout the food supply chain—from food production and preparation processes to packaging and distribution. The system is designed to prevent, eliminate, or reduce hazards to an acceptable level. NSF certification to HACCP can help businesses meet FDA and USDA requirements for juice, seafood, meat, and poultry.

The Brand Reputation through Compliance Global Standard (BRCGS) for food safety is also GFSI benchmarked and covers food safety and management of product quality in food and ingredient manufacturing, food packaging manufacturing, gluten-free manufacturing and storage, distribution, and transportation logistics. NSF certifies to BRCGS’s Food Safety, Packaging Materials, Storage and Distribution, Agents and Brokers, START!, Organic, Non-GMO, Gluten-Free, and Plant-Based.

The International Featured Standard (IFS) is another GFSI benchmarked standard for manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, agents, and brokers. NSF Food Safety Certification, LLC is accredited to certify to the IFS as well. This standard includes requirements for senior management responsibility, quality and food safety management systems, resource management, production process, measurements, analysis, improvements, and food defense. NSF is accredited to certify to FSSC 22000 (ANAB Accredited, version 6). This certification standard combines the requirements of ISO 22000 and additional requirements to meet FSSC 22000.

FSSC 22000 certifies the food, feed, and packaging safety systems of companies in the food chain that process or manufacture animal products, perishable vegetable products, products with a long shelf life, and other food ingredients like additives, vitamins, and bio-cultures.

Animal Welfare and Ethical Working Conditions

Acknowledging concerns around the treatment of animals in food production, NSF says their Global Animal Wellness Standards go a step beyond traditional animal welfare metrics, incorporating requirements for a risk-based management system covering production, transport, assembly, and slaughter for all key species, including beef, dairy, small ruminants, pigs, hatchery, poultry, and egg-laying poultry.

Knowing that consumers also value companies that provide evidence of their commitment to ethical trading and human rights, NSF has partnered with Sedex, an Affiliate Audit Company (AAC). Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit is a widely recognized global social compliance scheme based on the Ethical Trade Initiative Base Code. Their efforts help assess the risk in a supplier’s working conditions in terms of labor, health and safety, environment, and business ethics, as well as the supply chain. As an AAC, NSF delivers these audits globally.

Sustainability

In addition to the many testing, auditing, certification, and consulting/training services described, NSF believes they have something to offer companies at multiple stages of their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) process related to sustainability goals. With the capacity to analyze sustainability supply chain practices, NSF helps companies develop practical strategies to improve in these areas.

Over the last 25 years, the Climate Disclosure Project (CDP) has become one of the leading global environmental disclosure systems used by financial institutions and supply chains to inform their decision-making. The CDP began as a way for organizations to disclose their climate impact and, using an independent scoring methodology, can measure progress in three areas: climate change, water security, and forest management. Scores range from D- to A, and an F is a failure to submit. By completing the CDP questionnaire annually, organizations can work to improve their CDP score. NSF is a CDP-accredited provider.

While CDP reporting is voluntary, there’s growing demand for companies to disclose their environmental impacts through the CDP. Recent disclosure cycle data revealed that more than 24,800 companies, worth two-thirds of global market capitalization, uploaded reports to the CDP platform. Annual CDP disclosure reporting may help companies benchmark and track progress, identify risks and opportunities, and build trust with consumers.

Other standards, like the NSF/ANSI 391.1 General Sustainability Assessment Criteria, allow professional service providers to make claims and quantify commitments to improve their performance in each of the standard’s four pillars: environmental impact, social equity, economic governance, and supply chain sustainability.

Moreover, NSF-ISR conducts third-party auditing for the ISO 14001 standard. The ISO 14001 standard was developed to reduce the environmental impact of a company’s operations. By voluntarily certifying to ISO 14001, companies may put effort toward improving their ESG processes by addressing actions that could reduce their environmental footprint, identify environmental risks, and prepare for emergencies with proactive plans.

Behind the Scenes

As a globally recognized organization for public health standards, some may ask how NSF’s third-party verification system works behind the scenes in terms of the impartiality provided by those who set the standards. Jessica Evans, director of standards at NSF, says, “NSF follows the American National Standards Institute and Standards Council of Canada standards development processes. Standards are developed by joint committees, which are balanced stakeholder groups of public health, industry, and user representatives.”

Although industry representatives may be among the stakeholders, Evans describes how this representation isn’t the only perspective considered in the development of the public health standards themselves.

“The NSF Public Health Council (PHC) serves as the independent, public health ratification step at the end of the process and provides final review and acceptance,” she says. “PHC members chair the joint committees to liaison between the council and joint committees. PHC membership includes only representatives from government/regulatory, academia, public health, and public service; there is no industry representation.”

As another check and balance on the standards development process, Evans points out that the NSF Health Advisory Board (HAB) establishes maximum exposure levels for unregulated chemicals that have not yet been established by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Health Canada, or other authoritative health bodies. The HAB includes representatives from the EPA, Health Canada, and the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

With all this in mind, consumers and health care providers such as dietitians can be more confident that NSF certification helps set the bar when it comes to third-party quality assurance. If a product, such as a dietary supplement, advertises third-party verification from a non-NSF organization or process, it’s important to avoid assuming they follow NSF’s specific criteria, including the types of compounds or microbial agents assessed and outlined here. Conducting a deeper investigation into what other third-party verifiers include in their assessments and how those assessments are carried out is always a good idea before relying on their approval to guide recommendations.

— Heather Davis, MS, RDN, LDN, is editor of Today’s Dietitian.