Scott Lerner, CEO of Ford Gum and David Trosin, Senior Director, Nutrition and Wellness at NSF joined the NutraCast to discuss the intersection of military innovation and modern performance nutrition.
Trosin explained that NSF’s Certified for Sport program goes beyond standard quality testing by screening products for more than 300 banned substances while also verifying label claims, contaminants and GMP compliance. Although gum was a new format for the organization, he said the certification process proved more straightforward than expected.
“When these new formats come in, we do look at them and think, ‘How is this going to go?’ And so we thought it might be more challenging than it actually was,” he said. “So the banned substance tests are the banned substance tests. That’s fine. That’s easy enough to do. It’s [the question of] ‘Can we run them on this format?’ We run additional QA checks and we take it through our system and it turned out to be much less difficult than we thought it was going to be.”
Lerner noted that the Department of Defense has been using MEG for over two decades.
“It has a significant amount of testing from the U.S. Army, so we knew that from a functional standpoint…it works for our troops and also for retail consumers via Amazon,” Lerner said. “What we wanted to make sure that it was was the cleanest product it could be and then open it up to new users.”
He added that MEG’s gum delivery system offers both convenience and functional advantages over traditional powders or drinks. Because caffeine is absorbed through the mouth rather than processed through the gut, Lerner said the product delivers energy more quickly and with precise dosing. The portable format also appeals to athletes, military personnel and consumers looking for on-the-go performance products.
The conversation also explored the rise of “functional confectionery,” with chocolate, gummies, gums and other familiar formats emerging as a subcategory in performance nutrition. Trosin noted that as innovation accelerates, third-party certification is becoming increasingly important for consumer trust and limited regulatory resources.
“When I joined NSF, it was 18 years ago. We had 108 substances on our banned substance list. We’re now north of 300 and growing. So we’ll be adding more substances this year. So the more we find, the more that the market evolves, the more people try and the bad players try and game the system. And so that’s where certification can play a really important role,” Trosin said.
Looking ahead, Trosin called out protein-fortified foods, creatine-infused products and GLP-1-related formulations as categories he will be watching that could create new testing challenges for the industry. Meanwhile, Lerner said MEG is focused on building off its NSF certification by expanding distribution, increasing adoption among sports teams and Special Operations Command units, as well as exploring new flavors and ingredients as the brand continues to grow awareness in the performance nutrition market.
To hear more on performance nutrition trends and the evolving role of third-party certification, listen to the NutraCast above or on your preferred podcast platform.
If you enjoy listening to the NutraCast, feel free to leave a review. You can subscribe on Apple, iHeart, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
