Glossary of Terms Dietary Supplement

A • B • C • D • E • F • G • H • I • J • K • L • M • N • O • P • Q • R • S • T • U • V • W • X • Y • Z

A

Actual yield – the quantity that is actually produced at any appropriate step of manufacture or packaging of a particular dietary supplement.

B

Batch – a specific quantity of a dietary supplement that is uniform, that is intended to meet specifications for identity, purity, strength, and composition, and that is produced during a specified time period according to a single manufacturing record during the same cycle of manufacture.

Batch number, lot number, or control number – any distinctive group of letters, numbers, or symbols, or any combination of them, from which the complete history of the manufacturing, packaging, labeling, and/or holding of a batch or lot of dietary supplements can be determined.

C

Component – any substance intended for use in the manufacture of a dietary supplement, including those that may not appear in the finished batch of the dietary supplement. Component includes dietary ingredients (as described in section 201(ff) of the act) and other ingredients.

Contact surface – any surface that contacts a component or dietary supplement, and those surfaces from which drainage onto the component or dietary supplement, or onto surfaces that contact the component or dietary supplement, occurs during the normal course of operations. Examples of contact surfaces include containers, utensils, tables, contact surfaces of equipment, and packaging.

D

Dietary Supplement – a product (other than tobacco) intended to supplement the diet that bears or contains one or more of the following dietary ingredients: a vitamin; a mineral; an herb or other botanical; an amino acid; a dietary substance for use by man to supplement the diet by increasing the total dietary intake; or a concentrate, metabolite, constituent, extract, or combination of any ingredient described below. Dietary supplements are no represented as a conventional food or as a sole item of a meal or the diet. Dietary supplements must be labeled as a dietary supplement. It shall not include any articles approved as a new drug under, certified as an antibiotic, or licensed as a biologic.

I

Ingredient – any substance that is used in the manufacture of a dietary supplement and that is intended to be present in the finished batch of the dietary supplement. An ingredient includes, but is not necessarily limited to, a dietary ingredient as defined in section 201(ff) of the act.

In-process material – any material that is fabricated, compounded, blended, ground, extracted, sifted, sterilized, derived by chemical reaction, or processed in any other way for use in the manufacture of a dietary supplement.

L

Lot – a batch, or a specific identified portion of a batch, that is uniform and that is intended to meet specifications for identity, purity, strength, and composition; or, in the case of a dietary supplement produced by continuous process, a specific identified amount produced in a specified unit of time or quantity in a manner that is uniform and that is intended to meet specifications for identity, purity, strength, and composition.

M

Microorganisms – yeasts, molds, bacteria, viruses, and other similar microscopic organisms having public health or sanitary concern. This definition includes species that:

May have public health significance;
May cause a component or dietary supplement to decompose;
Indicate that the component or dietary supplement is contaminated with filth; or
Otherwise may cause the component or dietary supplement to be adulterated.

Must is used to state a requirement.

P

Pest – any objectionable insect or another animal including birds, rodents, flies, mites, and larvae.

Physical plant – all or any part of a building or facility used for or in connection with the manufacturing, packaging, labeling, or holding a dietary supplement.

Product complaint – any communication that contains any allegation, written, electronic, or oral, expressing concern, for any reason, with the quality of a dietary supplement, that could be related to current good manufacturing practice. Examples of product complaints are: Foul odor, off taste, illness or injury, disintegration time, color variation, tablet size or size variation, under-filled container, foreign material in a dietary supplement container, improper packaging, mislabeling, or dietary supplements that are superpotent, subpotent, or contain the wrong ingredient, or contain a drug or other contaminant (e.g., bacteria, pesticide, mycotoxin, glass, lead).

Q

Quality – that the dietary supplement consistently meets the established specifications for identity, purity, strength, and composition, and limits on contaminants, and has been manufactured, packaged, labeled, and held under conditions to prevent adulteration under section 402(a)(1), (a)(2), (a)(3), and (a)(4) of the act.

Quality control – a planned and systematic operation or procedure for ensuring the quality of a dietary supplement.

Quality control personnel – any person, persons, or group, within or outside of your organization, who you designate to be responsible for your quality control operations.

R

Representative sample – a sample that consists of an adequate number of units that are drawn based on rational criteria, such as random sampling, and that are intended to ensure that the sample accurately portrays the material being sampled.

Reprocessing – using, in the manufacture of a dietary supplement, clean, uncontaminated components or dietary supplements that have been previously removed from manufacturing and that have been made suitable for use in the manufacture of a dietary supplement.

Reserve sample – a representative sample of a product that is held for a designated period of time.

S

Sanitize – to adequately treat cleaned equipment, containers, utensils, or any other cleaned contact surface by a process that is effective in destroying vegetative cells of microorganisms of public health significance, and in substantially reducing numbers of other microorganisms, but without adversely affecting the product or its safety for the consumer.

T

Theoretical yield – the quantity that would be produced at any appropriate step of manufacture or packaging of a particular dietary supplement, based upon the quantity of components or packaging to be used, in the absence of any loss or error in actual production.

W

Water activity (a_w) – a measure of the free moisture in a component or dietary supplement and is the quotient of the water vapor pressure of the substance divided by the vapor pressure of pure water at the same temperature.