Doing what’s right for our customers. That’s the single, simple, guiding principle that Wegmans’ food safety and quality assurance team lives by. Everything they do is done in the best interest of our customers, and to build on the quality, trust, and transparency they’ve come to expect from us. It was with that goal in mind that Wegmans launched its Verified with Confidence program in late 2020. For this program, Wegmans partnered with NSF, an independent, global public health and safety organization, to ensure all dietary supplements, CBD-containing products, herbals, and probiotics sold at Wegmans are certified for good manufacturing practices (GMP) and meet product testing requirements, verifying that what’s on the label is in the bottle.

“Unfortunately, dietary supplements aren’t as actively regulated as the food industry, and because of that, there’s been instances where product integrity has become an issue,” explains Betsy Crater, Wegmans non-food quality assurance manager. “With a lack of consistent regulations and requirements, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to take the necessary steps to ensure our customers can trust the products for sale on our shelves.”

The first step was focusing on our own Wegmans brand dietary supplements. Starting in early 2017, in partnership with NSF, we began the process to have all our store-brand dietary supplements fully certified to the official American National Standard for dietary supplements, NSF/ANSI 173. This included GMP registration of our manufacturing facilities and full product testing to verify the product formulations matched what was on the label, and that the products were free of contaminants.

“We were the first grocery retailer to take this step,” explains Betsy. “I’ve worked in this industry for a long time, and it’s always been my mission to do what’s right for the customer. It’s wonderful to work for a company that believes in the same thing and is willing to lead the charge in hopes that the industry will follow.”

In 2018, Wegmans became a founding architect of the Global Retailer and Manufacturer Alliance (GRMA), a non-profit organization developed in collaboration with other retailers, manufacturers, certification bodies, and associations in the health and wellness category to create a good manufacturing process that everyone would accept.

“The founding GRMA members recognized the need for organizational structure within the health and wellness product categories and set out to create a standard that parallels what we see in the food industry,” says Betsy, who has been a member of the GRMA board since its inception.

That first year, GRMA, with NSF, had consensus standards for good manufacturing processes using the newly updated NSF/ANSI 455-2 and 455-3 for dietary supplements and cosmetics/personal care products, respectively.

Fast forward to 2020, and the GRMA GMP Certification becomes the foundation of our Verified with Confidence Program, which requires all brands doing business with Wegmans in the dietary supplements, non-food CBD, herbals, and probiotics space to be certified for GMPs and have their products tested to verify that what is on the label is what’s actually in the bottle.

“We are extremely proud that today, every product on our shelves in these categories has gone through and passed the rigorous standards of our Verified with Confidence program,” says Betsy. “Getting to this point has been a long but rewarding road. By requiring our suppliers to go through this process, and use the GRMA’s GMPs, our customers can be confident that the products on our shelves contain the ingredients stated on the label and are manufactured in facilities that meet the highest quality and safety standards.”

Wegmans is committed to growing the Verified with Confidence program, with active and adult nutrition products currently going through the certification process.

Visit our Verified with Confidence page to learn more about the program.