Industry veteran Dave Slagle will helm the new organization, which will be known as ICON (International Creatine Organization and Network). Speaking with NutraIngredients following the announcement, Slagle said: “ICON is a member-led partnership. It is a 501 c6, nonprofit.”
The genesis for ICON occurred at the 2025 Sports and Active Nutrition Summit during a conversation started between Slagle and Steve Jennings at a round table lunch, he said.
The pair agreed that creatine was being prevented from becoming a global health staple due to a lack of consistent third-party verification or testing of creatine per lot and the myths and misinformation on social media.
“The goal is to raise the bar,” said Slagle. “One of the things that we’ve done is the USP standard for creatine. A lot of people don’t know it’s 98%. What we’ve done is we’re starting with a standard purity of 99.5% and our membership may vote to raise that. If our board ratifies it, it will become higher. But right now, we wanted to raise the bar up to 99.5% purity, and we wanted to make sure that it’s per lot tested.”
ICON has partnered with SGS to create a QR code that will link to every certificate of analysis (C of A), he explained, and this is going to give an advantage to manufacturers from China who have experienced “unfair bias based on geography and not verification”.
“Some of those [Chinese] manufacturers are making the highest standard creatine monohydrate brought to market,” he added.
All are welcome here
The organization is “creatine agnostic”, he said, noting that they are starting with the “largest marketplace and the oldest”, which is creatine monohydrate, but the organization is open – and would welcome – other forms of creatine to join the organization and submit their creatine to the same rigor.
Slagle said that the top of the membership pyramid will be the consumer brands. “I think the brand should be looking to have that QR code when they’re doing their products,” he said. “And the retailer should be looking for that to gatekeep who is allowed on their platforms. This is specifically going to be for e-commerce, although I think the brick-and-mortar retailers would benefit as well.
“The CDMOs are going to want that because they only want to put the best products in their formulations, right down to the creatine manufacturers, who are going to provide proof that they actually have met the standards of icon.”
Watch the video for the full interview
