Seals + Certifications FAQUpdated 2 months ago
Seals + Certifications
See: Approved Other Claims by Product_Certifications.xlsx
Third Party Certifications
B Corp
B Corps meet the highest standards of overall social and environmental performance, transparency, & accountability using our collective power for good. The B Corp assessment scores the company’s impact and highlights opportunities. We are focused on tackling all areas, from how we treat our workers to the impact we are having on the environment. We’ve structured this report to reflect the various areas of business assessed by B Corp
What is your B Score?
81.8
How often do you re-assess/rescore?
Every 2-3 years
You can read more in our Impact Report here.
USDA Organic
Ensures products meet USDA Regulation, National Organic Program (NOP) standards - purity of products through standards which include no prohibited substances such as synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and no GMOs.
What percentage organic?
USDA Organic means the product contains 95% or more organic ingredients. MegaFood’s Certified USDA Organic products are:
B12 Energy Gummies (Cranberry)
B12 Energy Gummies (Ginger)
D3 Bone, Muscle & Immune Support Gummies
Elderberry Immune Support Gummies
Elderberry Zinc Immune Support Syrup (disco list)
Turmeric Inflammation Response Gummies (disco list)
Certified “Made with” means that the product contains 70%-94% organic ingredients. One product is certified “made with”: C Defense Tangy Citrus Gummies
Is there testing associated with this certification?
Yes. MegaFood goes over and above the NOP requirements by doing spot checks of pesticides prohibited from use in organic crops to make sure the materials are meeting organic standards. Note too that organic certifiers visit growers, test the crops and soil to ensure initial and continued compliance with NOP standards.
Does Organic certification rely on a paper trail?
Yes the process involves getting certifications from growers and manufacturers issued by approved organic certifiers. This is an annual process, so growers are not certified just once, but fresh evidence of continued compliance is shared annually with the certifier. Each company in each steps of the supply chain must also be audited every year. MegaFood’s audits occur in February.
MegaFood is also certified at the facility level as a handler/manufacturer with organic ingredients.
Non-GMO Project Verified
A verification process that ensures products are produced without genetic engineering and its ingredients are not derived from GMOs.
Is each ingredient verified or just the finished product.
Every ingredient is evaluated for compliance with the Non-GMO Project standards. These ingredients are re-evaluated every year during the annual renewal process.
What is the verification process?
Very detailed!! Everyone has access to the NGP Standard.
Glyphosate Residue Free
Glyphosate is the most commonly used herbicide in the US. This certification verifies that products do not contain this problematic herbicide. MegaFood is the first supplement brand to have its entire line certified.
Who does the testing?
Third party labs that: a) have state of the art instrumentation, b) are ISO 17025 certified, and c) are approved by Detox Project, the third party certifier. Detox Project qualifies the labs, reviews test reports, issues certifications to manufacturers like MegaFood, and in general oversees the certification process.
What does “residue free” mean? Could there still be traces present?
It means that the testing using state of the art instrumentation, cannot quantify any residue. There could be trace levels below the ability of instrumentation to quantify it.
GENERAL INFO
MegaFood is a leader in the industry working to influence changes in farming practices. For example, eliminating the use of glyphosate as a drying agent to improve crop yields, and reducing the maximum allowable residue allowed by EPA on individual crops.
Certified Vegan
Vegan products do not contain any animal by-products, which means no ingredient that requires the use of an animal in any way. This includes animal meat, of course, but also materials derived from dairy, eggs, honey, or wool. It additionally means that none of the ingredients or the certified product were tested on animals since the year 2000 and that nothing from an animal was used in processing either.
Certified by Vegan Action
Requires all raw materials to be reviewed and validated
We do annual renewals which entails sharing any minor changes to suppliers or formulas, label updates, etc.
Occasionally we are not able to obtain the level of paperwork detail required by Vegan Action (typically in the case of products produced at a contract manufacturer, which is why we sometimes but rarely use our internal standard before stating a product is vegan).
Certified Kosher
Who certified MegaFood?
MegaFood Facilities are certified by Circle K
Rabbis visit monthly, with fully-detailed audits taking place once per year.
Contract manufactured products are not certified at this time
Facilities are certified, and formula composition is reviewed to ensure it is compliant with Circle K standards
Kosher v Kosher dairy
Certified Kosher. MegaFood does not use dairy
Certified Plastic Neutral
Through our partnership with RePurpose, we’ll enable the removal of 450,000 pounds of nature-bound plastic waste. This means that for every pound of plastic packaging our brand generates, rePurpose Global will remove an equivalent amount of additional, verified plastic waste from the environment
How do we measure our plastic waste?
The weight of the plastic in our consumer product packaging, which is calculated annually.
Note: This does not include plastic used in manufacturing/facility/offices, etc.
How does rePurpose remove plastic waste from the environment?
Please see their website.
Internal Standards
Tested for 125+ Pesticides
Why not herbicides anymore?
MegaFood tests for more than 125 chemicals that include pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc. We just shortened the statement because it’s a lot of words!
Does that mean it is free-of, or just that you test for them? What is the threshold?
We test to make sure only approved chemicals are used, and that approved ones are below maximum allowable residues, which can vary depending on the testing methods and ingredients.
Who does the testing?
Only qualified third-party labs with appropriate instrumentation and ISO 17025 certification.
Do you test raw materials or just finished product?
We perform testing of raw materials and finished product. What is unique about MegaFood’s seal, is that we test all formulas as finished product, which is different compared to most competitors.
Made Without 9 Food Allergens
List of allergens:
egg, fish, milk, peanut, sesame, shellfish, soy, tree nuts, wheat.
Why these allergens only?
Because these nine allergens are those that the FDA has established are the most common food allergens in the US that must therefore be labeled if present at any amount.
Gluten Free
Testing level – ppm?
Less than 20 ppm.
Who does the testing?
External qualified labs.
ELISA test?
When appropriate, we test finished goods using the ELISA method, the only method currently used for gluten testing. However, that method is not appropriate for testing anything that has undergone certain kinds of processing, such as fermentation. So in those cases, we ensure that we have evidence that each ingredient used before processing is gluten free.
Vegetarian
Products made without ingredients from animals that would need to be slaughtered to make the ingredient. Our products described as vegetarian include those that contain honey, Vitamin D3 (lanolin from sheep wool), GTF Chromium (l-cysteine from duck feathers), and/or L-tyrosine (from duck feathers).
Vegan
Contain no ingredients derived from an animal.