Our Product
Quality

Our product development process is backed by research, science, experts, and most importantly, feedback from our customers and parents with children overcoming serious health issues. Here’s a glimpse behind the scenes.

• We provide the supplements that the body is often lacking and that are hard to get from food. Many of our supplements support gut health, which is the foundation for overall health.* Here’s more information about our story.
• We use simple ingredients that anyone can understand. For instance, our vitamins each have only one real food ingredient.
• We leverage other experts to help us vet and test products, like our personal team of PhDs and biochemists who work in microbiological labs.
• Our product manager Gana Wilson is a traditional naturopath and Certified Nutrition Counselor and our co-owner Karen Myers is a Certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner. Learn more about our team here.

Small Batch Supplements® says it all. Here’s how our supplements are created with care and of the utmost freshness in small batches.

• Smidge® Sensitive Probiotic powder bottles are filled by hand, not machine.
• Smidge® Sensitive Probiotic powder contains 1,000 servings, not because we wanted to have 1,000 servings, but this was the smallest bottle we could use for a pure product without fillers and prebiotics. The $99.95 product is for the people who need and want a pure product. For others, we have it in capsule form with an all-natural cellulose filler.
• The supplements facts on Kakadu Plum and Oysterzinc change with each batch since the products only contain real food and we do not standardize the nutrient content through fortification. 
• We only use all-natural, whole food vitamins. This means absolutely no synthetic vitamins or fortification.
• We avoid excipients in almost all products since the primary purpose of the excipients is to allow encapsulations machines to run at high speeds and reduce costs. For instance, it takes four hours of production time for every 16 hours of cleaning in between batches. With our probiotics, we have to run the machines slower and clean them more frequently because we don’t use flowing agents and the batches are smaller. This costs us more, and we are happy to pay to create a product that lives up to our standards and supports your health!
• We don't cut corners and are focused on high-quality, premium ingredients — truly quality over quantity.

We create our products with the help of contract manufacturers. Each manufacturer undergoes a stringent vetting process to ensure they meet our sky-high quality, sustainability and safety standards. And each of our manufacturers carries the highest certifications for their processes, including FDA registration, cGMP certification and ISO certification.

Like our manufacturers, our suppliers must pass a stringent vetting process to work with us.

Using advanced equipment, our quality team methodically tests our raw ingredients (more on testing below). For example, we test each strain in our probiotic formulas individually for potency. If the levels we receive do not meet the criteria for potency, we reject the materials and start from scratch.

Next, our production team meticulously crafts each supplement with the utmost consideration for details, from mixing the raw materials to encapsulating and bottling your finished product. We have total authority over what goes into our products. So we refuse to use prebiotics in our probiotic formulas. You also won’t find any other arbitrary filler in our vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium stearate, which can inhibit absorption and can contain contaminants and hydrogenated oils.*

In addition, our primary manufacturer allows us to remove flow agents, which are small amounts of manufactured substances that can have long-term health effects but are used to speed up manufacturing and reduce costs.* All of our products are excipient-free or have no unnecessary additives, to align with our goal of providing clean solutions for optimal health.

We never rest on our laurels; we’re always trying to outdo ourselves and make a better product for you! 

FDA Registration

FDA registration is required for all facilities that manufacture, process, pack or store dietary supplements for consumption in the United States. Companies located outside the U.S. must designate a U.S. Agent for FDA communications. 

cGMP Certification

Smidge® has an exemplary record of compliance with the Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP), set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Our probiotic formulations are manufactured and packaged at a state-of-the-art, highest standards cGMP-compliant facility, where filtered air systems and a humidity and temperature-controlled environment help ensure product stability and purity. 

ISO Certification

ISO certification is a seal of approval from a third-party body that a company adheres to one of the international standards developed and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). A lab-quality team looks for breaks in the manufacturing process and procedure, identifies any mistakes in formulation and production — and works to correct them accordingly.

At Smidge®, we make a conscious effort to employ and support sustainable practices in all facets of our operation. This includes everything from our choice of suppliers to environmental protection, lean manufacturing and consciously minimal packaging. Our carbon footprint is always a concern, and we believe every little bit counts.

Ingredients

Protecting the earth’s resources is how we source ingredients responsibly and with respect to our environment. And we take pride in being a steward of the ingredients we use in our products. For instance, with our grass-fed Beef Liver capsules, we ensure the cattle live happy, nourished lives in the sun, and we use the whole animal by including beef gelatin as the capsule ingredient. With our Oysterzinc, we adhere to stringent quotas set by the European government to not overharvest the fresh oysters from Ireland’s Atlantic coastline. We also choose the suppliers we partner with based on their sustainability actions and efforts.

Shipping

As our sustainability roadmap evolves, we're working on long-term solutions to eliminate unnecessary waste. Nearly all our shipping supplies are made from recycled or recyclable materials.

At Smidge®, we believe creating elevated, premium supplements that are the cleanest possible all starts at the source. We deeply care about where our ingredients are sourced and grown. We partner with trusted suppliers, farmers and seamen who share our values for quality, science and responsibility. Focusing on ingredient quality and using as few ingredients as possible in our supplements ensures optimal potency and absorption for you and your family.

Most of our products are made in the U.S. The ones that aren’t hand crafted on American soil are from around the world — as we had to look further to uphold our standards. Take our Australian Kakadu Plum, which boasts the world's most abundant natural source of vitamin C, and nothing else. And, we only use the highest quality, authentic probiotic strains, with no common allergens.

A couple of notes on the safety of our ingredients:  

• Incoming ingredients are quarantined in our facility until they’re tested and verified.
• We thoroughly test to verify the identity, potency, and purity of each ingredient listed on our product labels (more on testing below).

You’re concerned about what you put into your body and so are we. That’s why we test our products for identity, potency, purity and nutritional value. Here’s what we do.

Probiotics:

• Authentic strains: We use only the highest-quality probiotic bacteria. All strains have been thoroughly researched, documented and banked in recognized microbial culture collections.
• Clean: All strains are non-GMO and tested for purity.
• Potent: Our probiotics are freeze-dried at collection to ensure potency.
• Hypoallergenic: Our probiotics are guaranteed to be free of common allergens, preservatives, binders, and fillers, including gluten and dairy proteins. Only Kosher-certified vegetarian capsules are used.
• Human-compatible: Only human compatible species of Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium and Saccharomyces are used in our formulas. Both colonizing and transient species with documented benefits are used. We avoid spore-forming species, which can cause negative reactions in people with sensitive digestive systems.
• Manufacturing: Our probiotic formulations are manufactured and packaged at a state-of-the-art, highest standards cGMP-compliant facility, where filtered air systems and a humidity and temperature-controlled environment help ensure product stability and purity. 
• More below!

Quality control measures:

And here are more quality control measures that we take for certain products.

• Heavy Metal Analysis (ICP-MS)
• Microbiology Analysis (Biolumix and 3M)
• Identity Testing (HPTLC and FTIR and DNA Testing)
• Potency Testing (HPLC)
• Systemized Operations (GMP process on ERP)

Four rounds of testing:

Each product goes through multiple tests. Here’s an example of the testing we do via our selected partners’ in-house laboratories (while most other brands test only once or twice).*

1. Raw materials and components – We test every raw material and component, and screen for contaminants. 
2. In-process testing – This helps ensure the correct amount of ingredients are used in our custom formulas. And we stringently check for any bottle, label or capsule issues throughout the manufacturing process.
3. Finished product testing – Before being released for sale, finished products are tested to confirm the ingredients' identity, potency, and purity and confirm that no microbiological contamination occurred during manufacturing.
4. Stability testing – We test product stability to confirm that each product will meet its label claims up to its expiration date, including shipment in different temperatures. We do this to ensure the products are of the utmost freshness and will last until that date.

In all, we do the homework, and our number one goal is that the product arrives potent, pure and fresh.

If you have a question about the testing and safety of your favorite products, ask it here. Transparency and your comfort level are incredibly important to us!