Health and wellness represent one of the biggest industries in the world today. A lot of people, whether intentionally or not, get into the trend in one form or the other. Whether or not you’re the type to go for trends and fads like the Paleo diet or Zumba, odds are you go for supplements and vitamins to complement your daily intake of nutrients. The standard used to be that these supplements would be bought from high-end, big manufacturers.
Trends now, however, lean more towards affordable generics from private label manufacturing companies. This strategic partnership allows for the expenses of producing supplements to be split between two companies. One handles the marketing and is usually the one with the ideas. The other company handles the manufacturing processes entirely. Then both come together to profit from the sales of the product. The brand name usually comes from the bigger company. This is why you may have Disney branded vitamins even if this company did not really produce them.
Here are three tips for you to be able to get quality out of these types of arrangements–and it’s all a matter of making sure that the only “cheap” thing is the price and not the product itself.
1. Dependability
It is usually enough to look at the brand name to determine quality. That’s especially true with brand names that have a long history and a reputation to protect. Like the earlier example, Disney would never put their name on a product that isn’t of the best quality. There is a caveat, though. Make sure to check the back labels for authenticity. Any pirate can slap a fake name on a fake product.
2. Source materials:
Another thing to look at are the materials and ingredients that a drug is formulated from. These are usually clearly printed as per FDA regulations and can be a guide for you. You can compare the ingredients to standards on the FDA site. You can even do a quick internet search to see if a product incorporates banned substances or more heavily regulated ones.
3. Official approval
People tend to gloss over the approval of a federally appointed governing body as an indicator of quality–in this case, the FDA. However, check with their website first for tips on spotting authentic approval from the fake ones.
All in all, the key is to be smart when buying supplements produced by private label manufacturing companies, but you can trust that many of these can be as cheap as they can be without compromising quality. There’s no hidden gimmick here, just smart partnership. And you can reap the full benefits of these on your wallet if you just follow the tips above very carefully.
