Common Microbiological Challenges and Testing Solutions for Dietary Supplements
Dietary supplements present unique challenges when it comes to testing, primarily due to their complex botanical composition and the inherent variability between batches. With natural ingredients sourced from plants, herbs, and other botanicals, the consistency of each batch can differ, making standard testing methods difficult to apply.
Manufacturers play a crucial role in ensuring that their raw materials and finished products meet defined specifications. It’s essential that supplements are thoroughly tested to verify their identity, potency, purity, and safety—ensuring they are free from harmful pathogens and contaminants. While regulations provide oversight, it is ultimately the responsibility of the manufacturer to implement robust quality control measures throughout production.
Common challenges with dietary supplements are natural populations of non-pathogens, the presence of intentionally-added probiotic bacteria and fungi, and cloudy, thick product matrices.
Microchem works as a partner with dietary supplement companies to ensure the suitability of our methods for the testing of their products for bacterial and fungal counts, and to prove the absence of specific pathogens. When methods are not suitable “out of the box,” we employ a host of techniques to facilitate reliable testing without sacrificing speed or accuracy. Our deep microbiological expertise shines when products are tricky. We use everything from heat-shocking to membrane filtration, from to neutralizer development to utilization of extra dilutions.
As the supplement industry continues to grow, the need for precise, reliable testing has never been more obvious.
Microchem offers routine USP <2021> and USP <2022> testing, as well as enumeration methods for Clostridia and Listeria—high risk microorganisms that are more prone to contaminating food and supplements. Contact the lab to learn more.