How to use a certification checker properly

By Tom Francis·Updated 2026-09-03·3 sources·Editorial policy

What these tools actually are

Certification programmes publish searchable listings of the products and batches they have screened. They exist so that a player, coach or support staff member can verify a specific product rather than relying on packaging.

That is the whole purpose, and almost nobody uses them, because the assumption is that a logo on a tub has already answered the question. It has not, and the gap between those two things is what this page is about.

Search the batch, not the brand

A brand or product search tells you the line is in the programme at some level. A batch search tells you that the specific production run your tub came from was sampled and screened.

Under strict liability the consequence attaches to what was in your body, which came from your tub, which came from one batch. That is why the batch is the unit that matters and why the number stamped on the base of a tub is the most important thing on it.

The mistakes that make a check worthless

Searching the brand and stopping there. Assuming a logo means a current certification, when artwork outlives programmes and formulations change. Checking once and never again, when certification attaches to batches rather than to a purchase decision made a year ago.

And throwing the tub away. If the batch number is gone, nothing can be checked retrospectively, which is exactly when a player most wants to be able to check.

When to do it

Every new tub, before starting it. It takes under a minute and it is the only step in this whole area that produces a definite answer.

Photograph the batch number and the ingredients panel when you open a product, so the information survives the packaging. That habit costs ten seconds and is the single most useful thing on any anti doping page on this site.

What a checker cannot tell you

Whether the product is any good. Certification says nothing about dose, whether an active reaches a claim threshold, whether the claims on the pack are authorised, or whether the product is worth the money.

A certified product can be an underdosed product sold on a claim that does not exist. The certification check and the label check are separate exercises and both are needed.

The Futuro Labs position

Searching any certification checker for Futuro Labs Magnesium Glycinate, Futuro Labs Omega 3 Fish Oil, Futuro Labs Marine Collagen or Futuro Labs Lion's Mane will return nothing, because none of them is certified by any programme.

They are independently lab tested for purity and made in the UK to GMP standards, which is a different check covering contaminants and label accuracy rather than banned substances. A player subject to testing should be choosing a product that does return a batch listing.

The process

1. Find the batch number on the base or side of the tub.
2. Photograph it and the ingredients panel.
3. Search the programme's listing for that batch number.
4. Treat a brand or product hit as insufficient on its own.
5. Treat no result as unverified rather than as proof of a problem.
6. Repeat for every new tub, because certification attaches to batches.
7. Run the label check separately, because certification says nothing about dose.

Who else should be doing this

In club rugby this usually falls to individual players, and it does not have to.

A club can decide that anything distributed in the clubhouse is certified and checked, which removes the decision from twenty individuals and takes about the same amount of time as one player doing it once. A coach can make sure nothing unlabelled gets handed out, particularly on match day. And a squad can agree that nobody shares tubs, which is where most of the informal risk sits at amateur level.

None of that costs anything and all of it reduces risk more than any individual habit does. It is worth raising with a club that has a supplement supplier relationship, because a discount is not certification and the two get conflated easily.

Where to go next

• How to check whether a supplement is batch testedThe full method, including what purity testing does not cover.
• Informed Choice, Informed Sport and the other certification schemesHow the programmes differ and which matters for a tested player.
• Is my supplement banned in rugby?What to do if something has already been taken.

Questions players ask

Sources

• UK Anti-Doping, supplements
• World Rugby anti-doping
• Food supplements guidance, gov.uk