what does GMP stand for??
good manufacturing practices- it is a whole set of guidelines laid out by the TGA, FDA, United States Pharmacoepia, WHO, European Pharmacoepia, ISO, IAPEC, and other organizations regarding the use of safe standardized practices for the manufacture of consumer goods. The FDA passed a rule (Title 21 Food and Drugs, CFR 111 Dietary Supplement cGMPs) a little over a year ago stating that dietary supplement mfrs. and companies had to mandatorily comply with the rules and regs. outlined in a 700 page document (it is pretty friggin' long)- It is a game-changer for the industry- you won't really see many of the changes until about July or maybe a little after, but once these start to occur, you will see prices on a lot of products sold by sports supplement cos. go up quite a bit very soon, and you will also see some changes in the way they formulate, business practices, etc.
most of the bigger contract mfrs. have til July 25, 2009 to comply, and in compliance, they will have to test every raw ingredient upon receipt (at least until they qualify the supplier), and every ingredient for a finished product to be released. The co. mfrs. are going to pass this price on to the supplement cos. they mfr. for, and then these companies will pass the cost on to you, the consumer. Unfortunately, to run a profitable business, they will have to do this- and the cost to get these materials tested is going to be staggering- think: most products have 10 plus ingredients in them, and an ingredient assay for finished product testing costs around $200-300 PER INGREDIENT- and the testing has to be done, or the batch won't get released- so they can tack on $2 to $3 extra K onto their costs for each batch of each sku- and in a lot of situations, this translates to a 20-30% increase in costs on most skus (at least)
We are in the last little part of cGMP certification- 2 years ahead of schedule (pretty much why I have been absent over here). This also means that we will be blasting out some really potent powdered sku's and super-innovative products in 09'- so GET READY!!!! 
