South Korean–manufactured omega-3 supplement is first supplement in the country to bear Nutrasource’s third-party IFOS certification

Photo © AdobeStock.com/Maksymiv Iurii

A South Korean–manufactured omega-3 supplement has become the first supplement product in the country to bear third-party International Fish Oil Standards (IFOS) certification from Nutrasource Pharmaceutical and Nutraceutical Services (Guelph, ON, Canada). According to Nutrasource, this is the first time that a supplement manufactured in South Korea will bear the IFOS label without having to import ingredients or be manufactured outside the country.

Nutrasource’s third-party ingredient-certification programs include IFOS as well as NutraStrong, IGEN, IPRO, and ICAP. The Korean company using the IFOS logo is FMW Corp. According to Yun Taeho, director of planning and development at FMW, “FMW pursued an IFOS certification as it is a globally recognized certification that evaluates omega-3 products with the most stringent of criteria.” Taeho said Nutrasource supported FMW as it gained approval to use the IFOS logo from the Korean Health Supplements Association (KHSA), which the Korea Food & Drug Administration tasks with reviewing such applications. The companies say KHSA grants approvals for all products manufactured in and imported to Korea on a case-by-case basis.

In the press release, Kevin Yan, vice president of certifications and analytics at Nutrasource, said, “Nutrasource is extremely proud to achieve approval from the KHSA of the IFOS logo on product packaging for the first time [for] a Korean-manufactured supplement. This approval illustrates the level of quality of the FMW products as well as the importance of transparency and third-party testing to the Korean marketplace.”