Leading Trade Publication Presents Best of the Industry Award to Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) has been recognized with Nutritional Outlook magazine’s 2021 Best of the Industry award in the “Service Provider” category. The award honors individuals, groups, and companies whose initiatives set a new standard for excellence and positively influence the natural product, dietary supplement, and food and beverage industries.

BAPP also received a Best of the Industry award in 2016, in the “Industry Leader” category. In an email, Nutritional Outlook Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Grebow explained that the magazine “awarded BAPP in the past but felt it was important to do so again not only to celebrate the organization’s 10th anniversary but also to show how the organization and its importance have grown in the years since.”

BAPP was founded by the nonprofit American Botanical Council (ABC) in 2011 as a research and education program to assist responsible members of the US and international botanical industry in authenticating botanical raw materials, extracts, and essential oils, as well as to detect their adulteration by unscrupulous suppliers. The BAPP partnership includes the nonprofit American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP), an independent organization that produces high-quality monographs on herbs used in commerce for herb industry members, researchers, and regulators; and the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR) at the University of Mississippi, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-funded Center of Excellence for the analysis of botanical dietary ingredients and the development of appropriate laboratory methods for analyzing botanical ingredients and finished products.

In an article announcing the award, Grebow wrote: “Adulteration will exist as long as there is a propensity to defraud the market for money. There will never not be a need for BAPP.… [I]n 2021, we again salute BAPP’s service for the past decade as a lookout for the botanicals market, the industry, and consumers.”

“We are profoundly grateful to Nutritional Outlook for their recognition of the unique and vitally needed research and educational efforts of BAPP,” said Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of ABC and founder and director of BAPP. “On behalf of all of us at BAPP, including our partners Roy Upton at AHP and Professor Ikhlas Khan at NCNPR, plus all BAPP collaborators, contractors, and underwriters, we truly appreciate the recognition of BAPP’s position and role in the international botanical medicine community — helping to ensure that consumers have access to authentic botanical ingredients in their herbal products.”

Stefan Gafner, PhD, chief science officer of ABC and technical director of BAPP, commented: “It is a great honor to receive this award and a testimony to the importance of BAPP. The award is shared with all those who support the program and its efforts to help industry bring products onto the market that contain high-quality botanical ingredients.”

About the ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterant Prevention Program

The ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program is an international consortium of nonprofit professional organizations, analytical laboratories, research centers, industry trade associations, industry members, and other parties with interest in herbs and medicinal plants. The program advises industry, researchers, health professionals, government agencies, the media, and the public about various challenges related to adulterated botanical ingredients sold in commerce. To date, more than 200 US and international parties have financially supported or otherwise endorsed the program.

To date, BAPP has released 67 extensively peer-reviewed publications, including Botanical Adulterants Prevention Bulletins, Laboratory Guidance Documents, and “Botanical Adulterants Monitor” e-newsletters. 

About the American Botanical Council