NSF Certified for Sport^®

About Us

To meet the growing demands of athletes, coaches and all those concerned about banned substances in sports supplements, NSF International created the NSF Certified for Sport® Program. This specially designed NSF program is a focused solution designed to minimize the risk that a dietary supplement or sports nutrition product contains banned substances.

Objective

The program's objective is to certify that participating sports supplement manufacturers have met NSF's stringent independent certification process guidelines, which were developed through a consensus process involving regulatory, sports industry and consumer groups. A key component of this program is an NSF Mark on each product label, to show athletes, coaches and consumers that a sports supplement has met NSF's comprehensive Certified for Sport® program guidelines.

This program, which focuses primarily on the sports supplement manufacturing and sourcing process, provides key preventive measures to:

• Protect against adulteration of products
• Verify label claims against product contents
• Identify athletic banned substances in the finished product or ingredients

Credibility

This program is part of NSF's successful 65-year history of providing certification programs for food, water and consumer goods. Specifically, the NSF Certified for Sport® Program builds on NSF's expertise in the areas of dietary supplements and functional foods:

• NSF developed and maintains the only accredited American National Standard to certify dietary supplements, NSF/ANSI Standard 173.
• By building on NSF/ANSI 173, NSF developed a comprehensive product testing program in NSF-accredited laboratories and an extensive manufacturing process evaluation to ensure the actual product contents match what appears on the label.
• NSF's history of independence led to a partnership with the National Football League and the NFL Players Association to develop and administer the NFL/NFLPA Supplement Certification Program, a first-of-its-kind program designed specifically for professional football.

Laboratory Capabilities

NSF International's Certified for Sport® laboratory testing services help our clients establish product stewardship by confirming content and purity, compliance, and assessing public safety and environmental concerns on products used by athletes.

Our state-of-the-art laboratories, accredited to ISO 17025, conduct routine analyses according to U.S. FDA Standard Methods, AOAC Official Methods, USP monographs and more for:

• Organic and inorganic analyses
• Ingredient confirmation
• Contaminant analysis
• Heavy metals
• Pesticide residues
• Processing impurities
• Dioxin
• Unknown mixtures

The NSF laboratories maintain continual investment in the latest technologies and have a large number of analytical instrumentation including GC, GC/MS, GFAA, ICP, ICP/MS, LC/MS, HPLC, Hi-res GCMS, TOC, and IC. With a dedicated staff of highly skilled professionals trained in analytical chemistry, biochemistry, environmental chemistry, food and plant science and nutrition, our clients can be assured of thorough testing and accurate results to meet today's public health and safety needs.