WASHINGTON, May 12, 2021 – Natural Alternatives International (NAI) has become the first company to meet new safety and benchmarking standards created by the Supplement Safety & Compliance Initiative (SSCI).  The announcement follows a more than five-year effort by the world’s leading nutritional supplement retailers–including Walmart and GNC–in collaboration with the Natural Products Association (NPA) and its members, to set globally harmonized benchmarking standards for natural products.

Some of the world’s largest nutritional supplement retailers including Amazon and Walmart have acknowledged SSCI as a benchmarking standard that companies must meet in order to sell products on their platforms.

“SSCI brings some of the largest retailers, raw material manufacturers and suppliers, dietary supplement manufacturers and other stakeholders together to assist in strengthening safeguards and helping to ensure regulatory compliance from harvest to retailer shelf,” said Dadrion Gaston, Senior Director Corporate Compliance, Health & Wellness Product & Supply Chain Safety for Walmart, and a Board Member of SSCI.

“SSCI is a retailer-led initiative looking to establish the guidance and thought systems necessary to ensure quality, authenticity, safety, and cGMP compliance needed to reduce safety risk,” said Sudipta Veeramachaneni, Ph.D., Vice President of Global Research & Development & Innovation for GNC, and a Board Member of SSCI.

“I would like to thank everyone who participated in this effort,” said Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D., President and CEO of NPA.  “This bold first step is what will maintain consumer confidence globally and will lay the foundation for future audits. We’re extremely grateful to every member of the group who worked hard to pull this together.”

SSCI was established in 2015 to strengthen the quality control measures involved with nutritional supplements.  Industry leaders determined that the international nutritional supplement supply chain lacked harmonized standards.  This reflection led to the idea for an organization by the industry, for the industry.

“The goal for SSCI was to establish a system with the understanding that that the FDA can’t solve all our problems,” added Fabricant.  “Instead, we’re going to show consumers and regulators that they can have confidence in the industry, and this industry-wide effort is how we are going to do that.”

Companies interested in the SSCI process and retailers interested in knowing who has participated in SSCI can find that information on the SSCI website.

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The Supplement Safety & Compliance Initiative (SSCI) is an industry-driven initiative led by retailers to provide a harmonized benchmark to recognize various safety standards throughout the entire dietary supplement supply chain. SSCI is a bold step forward in providing quality assurance from harvest to retailer shelf. Dietary supplements must meet or exceed the SSCI benchmark to be accepted in major retailers, all with the goal of providing quality products and increasing consumer confidence. SSCI Vision: Safe and authentic dietary supplements for consumers everywhere. Visit: http://www.ssciglobal.org/