USP-grade ashwagandha offers manufacturers consistent, verified quality: SupplySide West report

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At November’s SupplySide West trade show, Sabinsa Corp. (East Windsor, NJ) introduced a brand-name ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) ingredient called Shagandha. Shagandha is USP-verified, meaning it is consistently standardized, ensuring customers a high-quality source of this increasingly popular adaptogen.

At the show, Liz Smith, Sabinsa’s marketing director, said Shagandha is a game-changer for the ashwagandha industry. “A number of companies have not been standardizing their ashwagandha ingredients. Leaf and root is what you mostly see out there. Our ingredient is just root,” she said. Shagandha is standardized to 2.5% withanolides (ashwagandha’s active compound) as tested by high-performance thin-layer chromatography.

A USP-verified, standardized ingredient like Shagandha offers manufacturers and suppliers several key benefits. First, it guarantees that the product will be of consistent quality. Secondly, Sabinsa, a company who maintains an active research program on its ingredients, says it will use Shagandha in ashwagandha clinical studies the company conducts moving forward, so that research is done on a consistently standardized ingredient. Manufacturers can also use "USP" after the ingredient name on their products if they are USP-Verified, Smith added.

This type of quality differentiation is increasingly important as ashwagandha’s popularity continues to grow. As ingredients become more popular, there is also an increasing risk that bad actors will be economically motivated to adulterate their ingredients. Shagandha makes it easy for manufacturers because they know that the ingredient’s quality is consistent, Smith said.