Industry Partners Assist Companies in Participating in Supplement OWL

Photo from CRN

Companies that may have hesitated participating in the Supplement OWL (Online Wellness Library)-an industry-wide voluntary dietary supplement product registry created to give a more complete picture of the marketplace for regulators, retailers, and industry-can now avail themselves of two new resources for uploading their product labels to the database.

UL (Northbrook, IL), the global independent safety science company that developed and administers the Supplement OWL, and the Hamacher Resource Group (HRG; Waukesha, WI), a category management, business strategy, analytics and brand marketing service provider focusing on retail consumer healthcare, have both announced their willingness-for a nominal per-label fee-to speed the upload process and relieve some of the burden on companies.

While the Supplement OWL has been gaining traction, Duffy MacKay, ND, senior vice president, scientific & regulatory affairs, Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN; Washington, DC)-which spearheaded the Supplement OWL’s formation-noted in a CRN press statement that the main concern manufacturers voice is the staff time potentially involved in the initial upload process. “We’re grateful to UL and HRG for coming up with a way to cut down on the time involved, and provide the manufacturer with a reliable, accurate solution,” he says.

Specifically, UL and HRG are offering to populate the required data fields in the Supplement OWL’s first tier, which supplies basic product information using information that the manufacturer provides. Those manufacturers may still share edits as need and give their final approval, but the “more tedious elements” of the label upload process can now fall to UL and HRG, the statement said, “allowing companies to focus on fine-tuning each entry before it is made public and allowing in-house staff to more effectively utilize their own time.”

Said MacKay: “Taking advantage of the label upload service provided by UL or HRG is a great way for busy companies to get started with the Supplement OWL and ensure their brands are represented.” CRN members will be required as a condition of membership to participate in the Supplement OWL beginning in 2018, and CRN anticipates the number of responsible dietary supplement companies voluntarily complying to increase.