The $37BN supplement industry is unregulated, allowing any manufacturer to produce supplements with unchecked ingredients, fabricate label information, and create fraudulent dosages.The UpTech graduate, SuppleMENTAL, is working on providing a label-checking solution to help consumers understand what they’re putting into their bodies.
Cincinnati, OH – June 23, 2017 – Dietary and workout supplements have been a topic of debate over the past few years due to ineffectiveness, potentially dangerous ingredients, and lack of regulation from the FDA, but SuppleMENTAL is educating shoppers on the ingredients and effects of supplements, with the help of Zoozler.
SuppleMENTAL is a Cincinnati startup and a graduate of UpTech calling for an easier way for consumers to know exactly what goes into their supplements, and ultimately, into their bodies. The startup team has joined with Zoozler to take their product to the next level. Through Zoozler, the SuppleMENTAL app will have a fresh and reliable user interface, making it easy for a first-time user to experience the features.
The mobile application utilizes the users smartphone camera to scan labels of pre-workouts, herbal supplements, and more – to instantly discover what each ingredient is, so users can understand the complicated recipe on the label.
In a multi-billion dollar market, companies are often highly regulated, leading to strict labels and warnings – this industry, however, is everything but. Today’s commerce is dominated by old enduring brands, and dubious fly-by-night companies using underhanded tactics to market common ingredients as a high-quality blend of vitamins and minerals, creating extreme distrust in buyers.
“Our goal is to provide a way for any consumer to see the exact ingredients in any given supplement,” commented Tim Mielke, co-founder of SuppleMENTAL in an interview with Zoozler. “We will be able to provide users of our app with product-specific information to help back the claims on labels and reject the products that use innefective, banned, or harmful ingredients.”
SuppleMENTAL posted one example of the marketing tactics used to entice consumers on their Facebook page. The post shows how companies can use a different name for a fairly common ingredient, which in this case, is Sheng Jiang, the Chinese name for ginger.
“Claiming ingredients can provide health benefits is one of the biggest ways companies sell their supplements,” explains Mielke. “Some of these products use the wrong dosage, or unsafe ingredients, but others actually create a legitimate product that can help people live healthier lives – we want people to know which one they’re buying into.”
You can become a beta tester of the SuppleMENTAL app by emailing betatest@supplementalapp.com.
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For further information regarding this release, please contact:
Zoozler
Ethan Smith
esmith@zoozler.com