US online dietary supplement registry celebrates one year under its wing

25 Apr 2018 --- The Online Wellness Library (OWL) has reached its one year anniversary, and with one year under its wing, the OWL has over 10,000 labels and a number of accolades to boost its position. The OWL strives to ensure consumer safety by supplying an open, online resource: a self-regulatory initiative spearheaded by the council of Nutrition (CRN), for use by the dietary supplement industry. It is designed to “help create a more complete picture of the dietary supplement marketplace in the United States,” and is a two-tiered registry containing information from the labels of dietary supplement products.

Launched April 27th, 2017, the OWL markets itself as an industry-wide initiative designed to provide a robust and more complete picture of the marketplace for regulators, retailers, and industry stakeholders.

“The Supplement OWL is a clear demonstration of what can happen when industry chooses to collaborate and speak with a united voice,” said Steve Mister, president & CEO, Council for Responsible Nutrition, the leading trade association for the dietary supplement industry.

“We all have the same goal: consumer safety. Working together to bring the OWL to fruition, we are helping regulators keep bad actors off the market, giving retailers a new tool to curate their product offerings, and underscoring our industry’s accountability to consumers. Responsible companies recognize the importance of registry participation and understand what the absence of labels suggests. If a company is not willing to be transparent, it’s only natural to wonder what they’re hiding. I’m confident that as the OWL enters its second year, soon the majority of responsible industry will be represented.”

Starting April 23rd this year, CRN will be disseminating messages about the importance of the Supplement OWL and self-regulation as a whole. This week-long effort is designed to recognize companies who have participated in the Supplement OWL, to encourage more companies to upload their finished product labels and to generate public dialogue around the value of self-regulation.

NutritionInsight has followed the launch and support for OWL in previous reports.