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A supplement tub can make an impressive first impression. Bold ingredient names, performance promises and numbers dominate the front of the pack. The more revealing information, however, is often buried in the small print.
South African sports and performance supplements company Nutritional Performance Labs (NPL) believes consumers should know exactly what they are paying for, how much of each active ingredient they are getting and whether a product’s claims are supported by its formulation.
It is the thinking behind the company’s push for greater transparency in the local supplement category: the front should match the back. NPL wants consumers to look past the marketing and become more confident label readers.
“Consumers have become far more informed about what goes into their bodies, but supplement labels can still be intimidating,” says Stephen van den Berg, Executive Head at NPL. “Our view is that people should not need specialist knowledge to work out what they are buying. The ingredient, the dose and the purpose should be clear enough for the customer to assess the product for themselves.”
The dose matters as much as the ingredient
An ingredient name alone does not tell the full story. Two products may both promote the same sought-after ingredient while containing materially different amounts of it, making the dosage per serving an important part of any comparison.
NPL’s approach puts the dosage of active ingredients in plain view so buyers can see what a serving actually contains. The company describes this as an open-label philosophy, based on straightforward ingredient disclosure rather than vague terminology or formulations that are difficult to assess.
“There is a big difference between saying an ingredient is present and giving the consumer enough information to determine how much of it they are actually getting,” says van den Berg. “If a product makes an ingredient central to its proposition, the amount included should be easy to find.”
That is particularly relevant in sports nutrition, where shoppers are comparing products containing creatine, amino acids, caffeine, electrolytes, vitamins and other performance-related ingredients.
Know your label
NPL believes greater transparency also depends on better consumer understanding. Its ‘know your label’ approach encourages shoppers to ask a few practical questions: What are the active ingredients? How much of each is contained in a serving? How large is that serving? Do the quantities listed on the nutritional panel support the claims being made?
An impressive ingredient list means little if the quantities behind those ingredients do not stack up.
NPL wants this kind of scrutiny to become part of everyday supplement buying.
“People compare prices down to the rand, but what you are getting per serving is just as important,” says van den Berg. “Once consumers start looking at doses rather than simply counting ingredients, they are in a much stronger position to judge the product in front of them.”
When the numbers need to add up
For NPL, transparency means being able to connect a product’s claims directly to what is declared on its label.
A fashionable ingredient should not do all the work in the marketing while leaving consumers uncertain about how much is actually included. Nor should buyers have to decipher ambiguous terminology to understand the formulation.
The company believes this level of disclosure should become an expected standard across the supplement sector.
Over the past decade, NPL has built its position in South African performance nutrition. Part of its focus now is on helping consumers become more discerning about the products they buy and the claims they encounter.
“Trust should be something a nutrition brand can demonstrate,” says van den Berg. “The label gives us the opportunity to do that. Our responsibility is to make sure the information is clear, the doses are disclosed and the claims are supported by what is actually in the product.”
For consumers, that leaves less room for guesswork and far more information on which to base a purchasing decision.