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Informed Sport vs NSF vs the Cologne List: which certification applies to you
Almost every English-language article on supplement certification names two programmes. There is a third, it is the largest in Europe, and if you train in Germany, Austria or Switzerland it is the one you will actually find on the shelf.
The three test different scopes, on different schedules, and they promise different things. Knowing which promise you are buying is the whole point.
Informed Sport tests every production batch before release and keeps buying products off the shelf afterwards to test them blind. NSF Certified for Sport tests batches too, but wraps them in a wider programme: label accuracy, formulation review, facility audits, supplier checks. The Cologne List runs a label check and laboratory analysis at least once a year, focused on the substance classes that cause most contamination cases, and publishes how many analyses each product has had.
None of the three is a guarantee, and all three say so themselves. Under strict liability the sample is still yours.
Why any of this exists
Supplements are not licensed like medicines. In most markets a product reaches the shelf without any mandatory test, which means the only control on what is inside the tub is the manufacturer's own.
Independent analysis keeps finding what that produces. How large the problem is depends on what was sampled and where it was bought, and the figures are set out with their sources in the article on contamination.
What is consistent across datasets is the direction: this is not rare, and it clusters in particular product categories.
Certification programmes exist to put a laboratory between the manufacturer and the athlete. That is all they are, and it is a lot. What they do not do is answer any other question about the product, which is why halal certification is a separate check rather than an implied one.
None of them is a WADA approval. WADA does not test, approve or endorse supplements, and no list of WADA-approved products exists. A tub that says “WADA approved” is quoting an approval that was never given.
Informed Sport
Run by LGC, a laboratory group that has been testing supplements since 2002. The Informed Sport programme itself dates from 2008. Testing uses ISO 17025 accredited methods.
The defining claim is every batch, before release. A production run does not go to market until it has been screened. After certification, LGC continues buying certified products from ordinary retail and testing them without telling the manufacturer, which is the part that matters most: it tests what a customer actually receives rather than what a company chooses to submit.
LGC runs a second programme, Informed Choice, using the same laboratory and the same methods. The difference is not just frequency, it is the mechanism. Informed Choice is retail monitoring: a minimum of 12 batches a year, bought blind from shops, tested after they are already on sale.
No batch is guaranteed to have been tested before you could buy it.
The logos look related and the names sound interchangeable. A fighter reading a label quickly will not notice which one he is holding.
NSF Certified for Sport
Run by NSF International. The programme is wider than banned substances alone: it reviews the formulation and the label, tests the finished product, audits the manufacturing facility, checks suppliers, and continues monitoring after certification.
Two consequences follow from that width.
- Label accuracy is inside the programme. NSF verifies that what the label claims is what the product contains, within its own tolerances. Contamination is one failure mode; a product that simply does not contain what it says is another, and it is far more common.
- Contaminant screening extends past sport. Heavy metals and pesticide residues are part of the review, which has nothing to do with anti-doping and quite a lot to do with taking something daily for 8 weeks.
NSF Certified for Sport is the mark you will see most often in North America, and it is the one most frequently named in American professional sport.
The Cologne List
This is the one missing from almost every comparison written in English.
The Cologne List has run since 2006. Analysis is carried out by the Center for Preventive Doping Research at the German Sport University Cologne, a laboratory that works with WADA on supplement analysis. The programme sits inside GEMEINSAM GEGEN DOPING, the German national doping-prevention network initiated by NADA's prevention department, which covers the Olympic associations, the state sport federations and professional bodies.
To be listed, a product must pass a label check on the original packaging and an analysis for anabolic steroids and stimulants, at least once per year, without complaint.
That focus is deliberate rather than lazy. The programme's own reasoning is that anabolic-androgenic steroids and stimulants account for most contaminated and counterfeited supplements, so that is where the analytical effort goes.
The screening programme has been extended over time and does detect other prohibited substances.
The programme states that since 2006 no positive doping case has been linked to a listed product. That is its own claim about itself, published on its own site, and I have not found independent verification of it.
Read it as a track record the programme asserts rather than as an audited figure.
Two features of the public database are worth knowing about, because neither of the other programmes offers them.
- The listing shows how many analyses a given product has had. A product tested repeatedly over years is a different proposition from one tested once, and the database lets you see which you are looking at.
- It covers sports nutrition beyond capsules and powders, including drinks, bars and even baking mixes, because those are also things athletes eat in volume.
Pharmaceuticals are outside the programme entirely. For medication the answer is Global DRO, every time, as covered in the article on exemptions.
Side by side
| Informed Sport | NSF Certified for Sport | Cologne List | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | LGC | NSF International | German Sport University Cologne, within the German prevention network |
| Running since | 2008 | Long-established | 2006 |
| Testing rhythm | Every batch before release, plus blind retail purchases afterwards | Batch testing inside a wider audit programme | Label check plus analysis at least annually; count of analyses published |
| Beyond banned substances | Manufacturing and raw material review | Label accuracy, formulation, facility audit, supplier checks, contaminants | Label check against original packaging |
| Where you will find it | UK and international | North America, strongest in US pro sport | Germany, Austria, Switzerland and wider Europe; site in English and Spanish |
Deliberately absent from that table: the number of substances each programme screens for. Published figures differ between sources and move over time, and the comparison they invite is the wrong one.
What separates these programmes is the schedule and the scope, not a count.
All of which assumes these products are sold where you are. Frequently they are not, and that changes the calculation rather than removing it.
How to actually check a product
Knowing which programmes exist is half of it. This is the other half, and it takes about 2 minutes once you have done it once.
| Step | What you are looking for |
|---|---|
| 1. Find the batch or lot number on the container | Usually printed or stamped near the expiry date, on the base or the seam. Not on the label artwork. |
| 2. Go to the programme's own register | The certifier's site, not the manufacturer's. A logo on a tub is a claim, not a verification. |
| 3. Search for the product | Confirm the exact product name and size, because a brand often certifies some lines and not others |
| 4. Confirm your batch appears | This is the step people skip, and it is the one that matters |
| 5. Screenshot the result, with the date | If a question ever arises, you want evidence of what you checked and when |
A certified brand is not a certified batch. Certification is granted batch by batch, and it is entirely normal for a register to list some batches of a product and not others.
If the tub in your hand carries a batch number that does not appear on the register, that tub is not certified, whatever the logo on the front says and whatever the brand's other products carry.
When the batch is not listed
Three possibilities, and they are not equally likely.
The batch predates or postdates the certification period. Programmes lapse and get renewed. A product bought a year ago may come from a period when the brand was not enrolled, and one bought today may come from a batch not yet published.
The line is not covered. Manufacturers frequently certify their flagship products and not the rest of the range, because certification costs money per product and per batch.
It is not the product you think it is. Regional versions of the same brand name have different formulations and different manufacturing sites, which is why a product certified for one market tells you nothing about the same name bought elsewhere.
In all three cases the answer is the same. An unlisted batch is an uncertified product, and a tested athlete treats it accordingly.
Why cheap products are rarely certified
Worth understanding, because it explains most of what you see on a shelf.
The manufacturer pays for certification, per product and per batch, and the cost does not scale down for small brands.
A company selling a low-margin product in modest volume cannot absorb it, so it does not enrol.
The product may well be clean, and still nobody has checked, and for a tested athlete "nobody has checked" and "contaminated" carry the same consequence under strict liability.
The practical result is that certification narrows your options considerably and raises what you pay. That is the actual cost of competing clean in a market with no mandatory testing, and it is not a cost anybody advertises.
How often to re-check
Every new tub, every time. Not every new brand, every new container.
The whole system is built around the batch. A fighter who checked the product once in January and has bought it 4 times since has verified one of five tubs, and the one he verified is empty.
What none of them covers
This section matters more than the comparison above it, and the programmes are more honest about it than most retailers are.
The Cologne List states its own limits plainly: no laboratory can test for every substance WADA prohibits, so from an analytical standpoint there is no such thing as a safe product. It also points out that only one sample from a production unit is analysed, and a sample does not certify the whole batch, the same logic as testing one steak from a shipment.
Add the practical gaps.
- A certified brand is not a certified product. Companies certify some products and not others. The mark belongs to the item, not the logo on the front.
- A certified product is not your tub. Programmes work by lot. Check the lot number against the register, not just the product name.
- Medication is outside all three. Every prescription, every cold remedy, every inhaler goes through Global DRO first.
- Where you bought it is part of the risk. A certified product from a grey-market reseller is a certified product only if it is genuine.
Certification does not transfer responsibility. If a prohibited substance is in your sample you are answerable for it, whatever the tub said. What certification changes is the other half of the case: the degree of fault. A fighter who used only listed products, kept the lot numbers and kept the receipts is arguing from evidence. That distinction decides sanctions, and from 1 January 2027 it reaches further than it does today, because the contamination provision widens under the 2027 Code.
Choosing, in practice
Start from where you buy, not from which programme sounds strongest.
- Buying in Europe, and particularly in the German-speaking market, check the Cologne List first. It carries the products you can physically get, and the other two registers will return brands you would have to import.
- Buying in the UK or ordering internationally, Informed Sport will cover the widest range.
- Buying in North America, NSF Certified for Sport will be the mark on the shelf.
- Whichever register you use, search the specific product and check the lot. Then keep the receipt and write the lot number in your log.
A product listed by more than one programme has been looked at by two laboratories on two schedules, which is a genuine improvement, though well short of twice as safe.
The question to ask before you open the tub
Skip "is this brand certified". Marketing has answered that one before you ask it.
Ask instead: which programme, which product, which lot, and can I show all three in writing tomorrow morning if somebody asks.
If you can answer that for everything in your bag, certification is doing the job it can do.
If you cannot answer it for even one item, that item is the one that will be in the sample.
Recording which programme, which product and which lot, in a form built to be produced as evidence, is what The Clean Sport File is for.
Botanicals raise the stakes on all three programmes, and the clearest example in a fighter's stack is ashwagandha.
The story of how testing came into the sport at all is in where hydration testing came from.
Common questions
Are there WADA-approved supplements?
No. WADA does not test, approve or endorse any supplement, and no list of WADA-approved products exists. Certification programs such as Informed Sport, NSF Certified for Sport and the Cologne List test products for prohibited substances, which lowers the risk without removing it. Under strict liability, a positive test is still the athlete's responsibility.
What is the difference between Informed Sport and NSF Certified for Sport?
Informed Sport tests every production batch before release and keeps buying products off the shelf afterwards to test them blind. NSF Certified for Sport tests batches inside a wider programme that also covers label accuracy, formulation review, facility audits and supplier checks. Informed Sport is the mark you will mostly meet in the UK and internationally. NSF is strongest in North American professional sport.
Which supplement certification should an athlete look for?
The one that covers the market you actually buy in. Informed Sport in the UK and internationally, NSF Certified for Sport in North America, and the Cologne List in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where it is the largest programme and the one you will find on the shelf.
Does certification guarantee a supplement is safe?
No, and the programmes say so themselves. No laboratory can test for every substance WADA prohibits, and only a sample from a production unit is analysed rather than the whole batch. Certification lowers the risk. It does not remove it, and under anti-doping rules the athlete remains responsible for what is in their body.
How do I check that my tub is certified?
Find the batch or lot number stamped on the container, then search the certifier's own register rather than the manufacturer's site, and confirm that your exact product, size and batch appear. A logo printed on the tub is a claim. The register entry is the verification.
Two complete sample documents are free to read before you buy anything.
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Oleksandr Foka is a sports nutritionist with over a decade in professional sport. He wrestled freestyle from the age of 4 until he was 22, competing as a medallist and champion at Ukrainian and international level, and has worked with amateur boxers since 2017, including champions and medallists at world championships. He has worked in world title camps in boxing with Oleksandr Usyk, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Denys Berinchyk, Vladyslav Sirenko, Murodjon Ahmadaliev, Israil Madrimov, Sergiy Bogachuk, Sabirzhan Akkalykov and Abylaikhan Zhussupov, and with the Kazakhstan national boxing team and with Kazakhstan judo athletes, and currently works on the WTA tour.
Where this has to run across a whole squad rather than one athlete, the organisation-level version is set out here.
Oleksandr Foka — sports nutritionist. Questions: fokaoleksandr@gmail.com
Educational content, not medical or anti-doping advice. For adults 18+. No certification programme guarantees that a product is free of prohibited substances, and none transfers responsibility away from the athlete. Programme details change; always confirm current scope and listings with the programme itself before relying on them.