The Global Retailer and Manufacturer Alliance, a coalition of retailers, manufacturers, and trade associations involved in the food, beverage, and dietary supplement industries, is continuing its advocacy efforts via a number of public panel discussions to create a centralized set of standards for retailers to use in order to accept various products onto their shelves.
 
Today, a patchwork of requirements unique to each individual online and brick-and-mortar retailer is becoming increasingly complex and costly for individual brands to navigate, even for brands with strict adherence to federal standards for current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs), or certifications from reputable third-party testing and auditing facilities on quality, safety, and more.
 
The problem, according to Megan Olsen, the Council for Responsible Nutrition’s (CRN) vice president and associate general counsel, has become especially exacerbated over the past few years, as an increasing number of retailers, including companies such as CVS and Amazon, implement unique standards which serve as significant barriers to entry for small- to mid-size nutritional companies’ products. Industry executives estimate that various retailers’ duplicative testing requirements can add a cost of several hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for every product intended to reach retail shelves.  
 
“CRN first saw product testing requirements being imposed by retailers around 2018 when CVS launched its ‘Tested to be Trusted’ program, which currently requires third-party testing of products by a specific lab,” Olsen said. “Since this announcement, more retailers have started to initiate their own standards, which include third-party testing or rigid standards for lab testing that do not necessarily align with current industry practices and regulatory requirements. While CVS and Amazon are the only retailers to have spoken publicly about their programs, CRN is aware of other retailers that have certification programs in process.”
 
More Than a Financial Burden
 
CRN has played a major role in GRMA’s push for a harmonized set of standards acceptable to as many retailers as possible, to level the playing field for new and innovative products in the nutritional space and allow for competition and market access among third-party testing facilities. CRN recently held one in a series of panel discussions which included executives from GRMA, Nature’s Way, and Gemini Pharmaceuticals.
 
“Beyond the financial burden, CRN is concerned that a patchwork of retail standards forces manufacturers to conduct duplicative or inconsistent testing. The patchwork approach is restrictive to manufacturers as it limits their ability to select a third-party testing lab of their choosing or even use their own in-house lab. These programs also become inefficient because manufacturers may have to spend time working with a lab that is unfamiliar with the nuances of a given manufacturer’s formulation and using their test methods,” Olsen said.
 
Even though the intent of retail standards is to mitigate the risk to quality and safety brought on by less reputable players in the nutraceutical industry, this plethora of individual standards represents too many cooks in the kitchen for a broad movement centered around consumer protections. Not only will it likely add unnecessary costs which the consumer could bear the brunt of, Olsen said, but it could create confusion among consumers regarding which retailer standards are worth trusting.
 
“We are concerned that this complex structure of retailer standards will create a significant cost impact to companies that will eventually fall to the consumer or limit access to reputable products,” Olsen said. “In addition to cost concerns, various standards have the potential to confuse consumers as they seek products across different retailers.”
 
Consistent standards across multiple retail platforms, however, has the potential to foster consistently high-quality selections across retailers that choose to streamline the process, further benefitting the manufacturers themselves who would be dealing with fewer and thereby more affordable audits and tests.
 
“CRN recognizes the importance of establishing streamlined requirements across retailers to support consistency across certifying bodies and enhance consumer confidence in the industry,” Olsen said. “To continue this initiative, CRN has started an internal Retailer Standards Working Group comprised of CRN members to help facilitate conversations with retailers about streamlining standards for dietary supplements.”
 
Work to Date
 
GRMA has already established a set of its own good manufacturing practices through ongoing work with retailers, manufacturers, and trade groups, all of whom are members of either a governance board, advisory council, or stakeholder roundtable group, known as the NSF/ANSI standards. There are unique and continuously updated standards for dietary supplements, cosmetics, over-the-counter drugs, and medical devices and consumer products.
 
Thus far, three certification bodies have been named; NSF, Perry Johnson Registrars Food Safety, Inc., and UL have been approved for on-site and virtual GRMA certification audits for dietary supplements, cosmetics/personal care products, and OTC drugs.
 
Each year, the GRMA will host a summit to continue providing updates to stakeholders and membership regarding developments being made toward harmonizing retailer standards for the wide range of consumer goods covered.