Source of Truth – The Future

Three weeks ago, we wrote that a vitamin D3 ingredient sold as vegan contains animal-testing data and asked whether you could prove your own supply chain if a customer asked. Last week, we gave you five questions to put to any supplier.

It would be a poor series if we did not answer them ourselves. So here they are, in order, in public. Then a word on where we think this is going.

What is the botanical source, and can you document the extraction route?

We supply three plant-source routes, and the answer is documented for each. Vitamin D3V^® is cholecalciferol produced from Chlorophyta algae cultivated in the UK. EirVit^® is high-purity cholecalciferol derived from phytosterols sustainably sourced from pine bark. Vitashine is cholecalciferol extracted from lichen grown under organic and pesticide-free conditions. All three are plant-source at the raw material and through every subsequent stage, with no animal-derived input at any point, and the extraction and purification route is documented for each.

Do you hold a written policy on animal testing?

Yes. ProTec Nutra has never conducted, commissioned, or supported animal testing on any product in our range, including all three vitamin D3 routes. That is a statement about the whole history of these ingredients, not a position adopted recently, and it is available in writing on request.

Is that policy signed at the company level?

Yes. It is a company-level commitment rather than a line of website copy, which matters because a website can be edited quietly, and a signed policy cannot. If you are going to rely on a supplier’s word when you print cruelty-free on your pack, it should be a word somebody has put their name to.

Can you supply batch-level traceability?

Yes. Traceability runs to batch level and back to raw material, which is what allows a question about a specific delivery to be answered from records rather than from memory. For Vitamin D3V^®, the algae is cultivated and processed entirely in the UK, so the chain is short and the whole of it is ours. This is the difference between believing your supply chain is sound and being able to demonstrate it on the day somebody asks.

Which certifications do you hold, and can you show the audit?

At the company level, ProTec Nutra holds BRCGS AA+, achieved under an unannounced audit. We mention the unannounced part deliberately. An announced audit tells you what a site can look like when it has had notice. An unannounced one tells you what it looks like on an ordinary Tuesday, and we would rather be judged on the second.

At the product level, the certifications differ by route, because the markets do. Vitamin D3V^® is certified vegan, Kosher and Halal, meets the USP and EP monographs, and is not novel under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. EirVit^® is Kosher and Halal certified and meets USP and EP. Vitashine was the world’s first vitamin D3 registered with both The Vegan Society and The Vegetarian Society, and carries Non-GMO Project, Kosher and the Indian Vegetarian Mark. All three are manufactured in the UK, and the supporting documentation for each is available on request.

Where this goes next.

We did not run this series to win an argument with a competitor we have deliberately never named. We ran it because the direction of travel in this category is already clear, and because of who sits at the end of the chain.

We opened the series by noting that between October and early March, the sun at these latitudes carries too little UVB for the body to make vitamin D of its own, which is why NHS advice is a daily 10 microgram supplement for everyone aged one and over through those months, and why UK Biobank data puts 68 to 71 per cent of adults below 50 nmol/L in winter and spring. That is worth returning to now, because it is the reason all of this matters. Somebody buying a vegan vitamin D3 product in November is following advice and has chosen the vegan version on purpose.

What changes from here is the burden of proof. Environmental and ethical claims substantiation have tightened considerably across the UK and Europe, with no serious prospect of loosening, and the practical consequence is that believing a claim is true and having sourced it in good faith is no longer enough. It must be able to demonstrate the request, with evidence not written by the party making the claim. The retailers and brand customers already asking for testing policies rather than certificates are early, not unusual.

So, the five questions are not a campaign device. They are a reasonable prediction of what a routine sourcing conversation looks like in two years, and the suppliers who can answer them today are simply the ones who will not have to scramble later.

The industry does not need another logo. It needs sources that can be verified, and buyers confident enough to ask. If those five questions start appearing in the specifications we receive, we will consider the series to have done its job, including on the occasions we are the ones being asked.

Ask us.

If you would like the documentation pack for any of the three, including our written animal testing policy, origin documentation and certification, request it, and we will send it. If you would rather ask a question we have not answered here, ask that instead.

To discuss Vitamin D3V^®, EirVit^® or Vitashine for your next formulation, speak to the ProTec Nutra team.