Washington, D.C.— In a unanimously authorization by its board, the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) announced today its creation of an industry-wide dietary supplement product registry, which will be launched by the end of the year.

In the beginning, the product registry will serve regulators and the retail community. However, CRN’s definitive goal is to “provide industry accountability to consumers as well.”

“This is one step we’re making to take back our industry from the lawbreakers, from the renegades, (and) from the companies that spurn regulation," states CRN President and CEO Steve Mister. “Our member companies have turned a corner and are fully engaged in efforts to separate the legitimate manufacturers marketing healthful products from the hit-and-run, fly-by-nighters selling quick fixes and illegal drugs wrapped with a supplement label. We need all companies who care about our consumers and the sustained growth of this industry to join with us in this initiative.”

The initiative is just one of the association’s “self-regulatory projects.”

Earlier this year, as a requirement of membership, CRN announced that all members must submit their supplement product labels to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD). CRN is calling this move “a first and necessary step toward improving transparency in the supplement industry.”

Mister noted, “the industry product registry will serve as a companion piece to the ODS Label Database which is an important tool for the scientific research community.”

In an effort to save companies time, Mister also noted that the product registry will connect with the ODS’s database in some way.

The product registry will be developed and managed by a third-party vendor.

Posted on WholeFoods Magazine Online 4/13/2015