CRN enters beta two of Supplement Online Wellness Library

WASHINGTON – The Supplement Online Wellness Library (OWL), being developed by Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) and independent safety science firm UL, has begun accepting product labels from dietary supplement manufacturers and marketers.

CRN said Tuesday that with the move, the Supplement OWL is entering its second phase of beta-testing. The registry was announced in April, and in July CRN said it retained UL to build and administer the online dietary supplement product registry.

Plans call for the Supplement OWL to go live in January. CRN, which is providing the initial funding and coordinating efforts with the industry, is calling on companies to test out the registry before its launch by inputting product labels.

“Our goal is to make this process as efficient and easy as possible, and the sooner companies start the process, the more we can all learn together how to reach that goal,” stated Duffy MacKay, senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for CRN.

The online product registry will include full label information for dietary supplements. Available free, the registry is intended to become a key resource for regulators, retailers, the supplements industry and consumers.

CRN said the beta two phase aims to demonstrate the Supplement OWL’s scalability, and once a substantial number of product labels are incorporated into Tier 1 of the registry it will be launched publicly. Tier 1 will include copies of complete product labels and fields of information about the products, such as ingredients, brand names, allergen statements and number of servings.

Nine companies — FoodState, Garden of Life, Glanbia Performance Nutrition, Herbalife, NBTY, Pharmavite, GNC and Herbs Etc. — served as the original beta testers, working with UL to improve the process of inputting product labels.

“It was incredibly helpful to have these companies test the product registry, and their input allowed us to better understand where the challenges were and how we needed to meet those challenges to improve the product,” commented Erik Eberhart of UL.

CRN added that UL is slated to begin development of Tier 2 soon.

“This is a case of the industry demonstrating its cooperation, its maturity, and its willingness to add self-regulatory initiatives to supplement government regulation,” CRN president and chief executive officer Steve Mister stated.