Keeping Supplements Safe

Published On: September 9th, 2021

According to Forbes, VMS (Vitamins, Minerals, and Supplements) is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world. As claimed by the Nutritional Business Journal, nutritional supplements alone are projected to produce $60 billion in revenue in 2021.

Interestingly, almost every one of these supplements is completely unregulated. A BMC Medicine study, completed in 2013, used DNA barcoding to conduct a blind test of the authenticity for 44 herbal products from 12 companies. They discovered that less than half contained what was on the labels. Additionally, one-third contained fillers or contaminants not listed on the label, some of which “pose serious health risks to consumers.”

It may be that these supplements simply don’t work. But it may also be that you are ingesting something potentially dangerous, like allergen traces (peanuts, shellfish, etc.)—or something worse.

Unfortunately, there’s no simple way to know what is in the bottle. You can stick with legitimate dealers, but even the most reliable of those—both online and brick and mortar–have been called out for selling mislabeled products in the past. Attempts to explain how to avoid counterfeits by buying “direct” only offer a false sense of security.

The Supplement Solution

The Austrian market leader in premium micronutrient preparations, Biogena, has taken a different approach. They partnered with Authentic Vision to implement a mobile authentication solution to protect against counterfeiting and manipulation. Powered by the Authentic Vision unique Holographic Fingerprint™ label, and its CheckIfReal app, Biogena now has an iron-clad authenticity check and gray market analysis of all of their high-quality, science-based micronutrient preparations.

Biogena regularly sees itself exposed to the risk of product counterfeiting. As a company that supplies its products in the global market, the risk of product piracy is very real.

But not with Authentic Vision’s solution.: Today, Biogena’s preparations feature the copy-proof and tamper-proof security labels from Authentic Vision, a global provider of leading-edge authentication solutions. With the accompanying CheckIfReal mobile app, the labels can be checked for authenticity at any time with a simple scan, using any smartphone. Since the labels are unique and can be identified in each case, counterfeiting is prevented. Bottles with forged or manipulated labels can be easily identified by brand inspectors and consumers.

“Up until now, there was a manageable risk that someone would imitate our preparations,” notes Julia Ganglbauer, Biogena Managing Director. “After all, the name ‘Biogena‘ should always stand for 100% quality. What makes the Authentic Vision solution particularly attractive is that each Holographic Fingerprint™ label is unique and cannot be reproduced.”

The Holographic Fingerprint™ labels affixed to the Biogena preparations are so unique that even Authentic Vision cannot reproduce them. This is achieved through natural variances during the production process, and the Holographic Fingerprint™ is inseparably linked on the server with a unique ID and a data matrix code. Attempts to manipulate or alter this are automatically recognized with the app on any smartphone globally. No special equipment or training is required. The app authenticates the seal in real-time and delivers immediate and indisputable results.

Now. Biogena current and potential customers no longer have to guess whether the bottle they’re holding from the store, or the internet is the real deal. Now they know.