We’re obsessed with quality at Ritual. It’s why we only introduce products that meet our standards of quality, efficacy and transparency—and why we’re committed to lifting the veil throughout that journey, from our suppliers to your doorstep. Bottom line: From our rigorous testing and verification, to extensive analytical label verification, to our first-of-its kind, Made Traceable® supply chain, we believe it’s our responsibility to deliver high quality at every touchpoint, from your products to your experience.

With all this in mind, we adhere to a strict quality control process to ensure the high quality we promise to our customers. This commitment to quality relies on several foundational elements, including FDA regulations, sourcing, and manufacturing, as well as going above and beyond when it comes to testing and certification.

FDA Regulations

The idea that supplements are an unregulated industry isn’t just misleading—it’s categorically false. Dietary supplements are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, aka the FDA. The scope of the FDA’s regulatory authority is widespread with a number of categories that fall under FDA jurisdiction, including foods in the form of dietary supplements, bottled water, food additives, infant formulas, and other food products.

The FDA sets a requirement that brands and manufacturers must produce dietary supplements in a quality manner and ensure that they do not contain harmful levels of contaminants or impurities, and are accurately labeled according to current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) and governing labeling regulations. This sets the stage for any company for meeting quality and safety standards appropriate for consumption. In other words, FDA guidelines are the mandated baseline for our product safety and labeling practices—but for us, it doesn’t stop there.

Sourcing

We firmly believe that our products are only as great as the ingredients they contain (and the ingredients they don’t). That begins with sourcing. We choose to align ourselves with high quality ingredient suppliers that share our commitment to quality and safety—and we work closely with them to understand the source, how it’s made, grown, or harvested, and how it’s carefully processed. We ensure suppliers have clean and compliant facilities to FDA standards and regulations.

Through sourcing ingredients, our suppliers undergo a thorough qualification process to ensure that they can meet the corresponding specifications for ingredient identity, purity, strength, composition, and pass the testing limits set for heavy metals, microbes, allergens and other contaminants. Once ingredients are qualified, we make sure that ingredients transported to our manufacturers undergo inbound testing and are tested against our specifications. We require all our suppliers to provide a Certificate of Analysis (COA) containing all parameters outlined per the specifications.

Manufacturing

We have qualified US and Canada based manufacturers that are National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) certified to assure they follow current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs). cGMPs are the regulations enforced by FDA to ensure the safety and accuracy of labeling for food and dietary supplements. cGMPs provide for systems that assure proper design, development, surveillance, and control of manufacturing processes and of facilities that manufacture, package, hold, and distribute foods and dietary supplements to customers.

As ingredients are weighed, blended, encapsulated, inspected and packaged, we test and inspect to ensure all quality standards are met. We also test for organoleptic properties, such as flavor, color, texture and smell to ensure experience standards are met. Each batch of our finished products is tested against a corresponding specification for identity, purity, strength, and composition to confirm what is on the label is also in our products. We go a step further and use a third party lab to test each batch for heavy metals, microbes, allergens, and other parameters as warranted, ensuring our products are compliant with FDA regulations, and beyond.

Testing Above and Beyond

Industry standard is an important baseline. But we’ve always prided ourselves on pushing things a little further, even when it’s not required. We’ve partnered with a number of world-class, third-party testing organizations, such as Eurorfins and IEH laboratories, to develop and validate new test methods that increase the sensitivity of testing for our active ingredients in specific product formats and matrices.

These methods, in the case of Essential for Women 18+, have been shared with United States Pharmacopeia (USP)—which allowed them to independently conduct testing for Essential for Women 18+ to obtain the USP Verified Mark, one of the highest bars of product and label certification, and transparency. Beyond USP verification, some products in our portfolio have also earned Non-GMO Project Verification, and Informed Sport Certification.

Ultimately, we aim to go after some of the most rigorous certification bodies possible, even when it’s not required—all to further assure our customers that the Ritual you take every day is safe and high quality.

References:

1. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. (n.d.). Dietary Supplement Labeling Guide. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
2. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. (n.d.). Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMPs) for Dietary Supplements. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.