Nationwide Recall Impacts Over 850 Supplement Brands

The industry has had what we can only compare to an earthquake as far as giving a shock to the supplement industry. There has been a recent debate as to whether or not consumers should care where their supplements are being manufactured, and due to recent revelations, as well as a GIANT recall, proponents of transparency have a huge case going for them. 

The most recent news from the supplement industry comes in the form of an indictment on a co-manufacturer known as ABH Pharma. This is not a small, unknown manufacturing company. This is HUGE supplement co-manufacturer that goes under the names of ABH Pharma, ABH Nature’s Products, and Stocknutra.com. The press release, along with a lengthy list that we’ll get into was posted on BusinessWire on January 17th, 2020.

To start this off, we have to look at some concerning revelations about ABH Pharma. ABH Pharma’s owner, Mohommed Islam, had been accused by the DOJ of “distributing adulterated and misbranded dietary supplements, as well as unapproved and misbranded drugs”. A consent decree required them to destroy all supplements and drugs in their possession within 15 days under their custody or control. 

While the above is already crazy enough, the big news here is that more than 850 brands have been listed on the report to have gone through this manufacturer. Some of these brands are huge, while many are unknown/smaller. We won’t be mentioning any brands listed, however the whole list can be found here if you are curious.

Not only are there 800+ brands on this list, ABH has also issued a nationwide recall on all products from these brands that were manufactured by ABH. Just to be clear, this does not mean that every brand on this list must pull all of their products from the shelves, just products that were manufactured by ABH. For example, if a brand simply has one flavor or a product manufactured by ABH, they have to pull that product. Any products not manufactured by ABH are fine.

What you should take from this

There is a lot to takeaway from this. There is a myth that the supplement industry is “the wild west”, or is unregulated. This case shows that this is simply not true. Mohamed Islam had warning letters issued to him by the FDA dating as far back as June 25th 2012! ABH had plenty of warnings and time to make some much needed changes to their manufacturing practices, and of course, this was not done, and many brands are now paying the price. 

Brands need to demand more from their manufacturers, but more so from themselves. They need to be doing their own 3rd party testing, and not simply relying on the in-house testing from the manufacturer as it is actually the law in this industry. Brands simply need to spend more time auditing their co-manufacturers, so while we can’t completely fault every company listed, some are certainly to blame.

This shows that it may actually be a good idea to know where your supplements are being manufactured. There has been recent debates as to whether or not consumers should care where their products are being manufactured, and proponents of transparency have a great case going for them here. It’s already a growing trend in the food industry, for example people want to know where and how their chickens and eggs are being raised, giving the consumer a deeper connection to their food. So seeing this happen in the supplement industry can only be seen as a growing trend for the better.

What good can come out of this?

While this is not a good look for the industry, we do not have a grimm outlook here. While we’re not happy any of this happened, there is some good that will come out of this. 

Brands that are doing things the right way, such as NutraBio, are going to stand out here as companies you can trust. Hopefully, this revelation will entice consumers to take a closer look as to where their products are being manufactured, and if the manufacturing standards are up to par. 

We will be diving more into this in the coming days/weeks as we get more info, so stay tuned!