Research and Development

In 2013, Herbalife spent $51 million on quality assurance, product safety and compliance, and research and development. The research and development team has laboratories in Los Angeles, Calif., Winston-Salem, NC, Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Changsha and Shanghai, China. These centers work to develop and commercialize the latest technologies in food science and botanical extraction.

Quality Assurance

Herbalife has strict quality assurance procedures in place to ensure that its contract manufacturers, such as Fine Foods in Italy and Liotecnica Tecnologia em Alimentos in Brazil, meet the company’s rigorous standards. Herbalife reviews the Certificates of Analysis for raw materials to confirm that appropriate testing has been performed and that all raw materials are within ingredient specification requirements. Herbalife regularly uses internal and third-party auditing firm experts to verify that these procedures are being properly conducted. Herbalife contract manufacturers are excellent partners. They help make it possible for the company to provide outstanding quality and meet worldwide demand. Over time, Herbalife is moving more of its global manufacturing in-house to further enhance its quality control and its ability to scale-up production of its core products.

Manufacturing

Many Herbalife® products are manufactured at state-of-the-art Herbalife Innovation & Manufacturing (H.I.M.) facilities in the United States and China (Lake Forest, California; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Suzhou, China; Changsha, China), and also at carefully-selected partners in the United States, Europe, India, South America, and Asia. Herbalife® products must meet or exceed current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs). These cGMPs assure proper design, monitoring and control of the manufacturing processes. Our pre-manufacturing quality control steps help to ensure cGMP compliance, NSF compliance (NSF International), and to prevent adulteration (with ID testing and documentation).

Clinical Studies

We have conducted clinical studies with major universities around the world in order to benchmark the efficacy of various products. Three clinical studies using Herbalife ® Formula 1 Nutritional Shake Mix were conducted at the University of California Los Angeles*, United States; the University of Ulm, Germany; and Seoul National University Hospital in Korea. The studies demonstrated that drinking Herbalife ® Formula 1 Nutritional Shake Mix every day as a meal replacement is an effective way to control weight.

 

A clinical study using Niteworks® was also conducted at UCLA* that concluded that the anaerobic threshold in men between the ages of 50 and 73 increased when drinking Niteworks® every night.

 

*The University of California does not endorse specific products or services as a matter of policy.

Nutrition Advisory Board

The Nutrition Advisory Board is made up of leading experts from around the world in the fields of nutrition and health whose role is to educate and train Independent Herbalife Members and, in China, sales representatives, on the principles of good nutrition, getting regular physical activity, and leading a healthy lifestyle.