What a "Proprietary Blend" Actually Hides
If you have ever turned a supplement tub around and seen "Proprietary Blend 8,000 mg" with a list of ingredients under it and no individual amounts, you have met the oldest trick in this industry.
I started Valenco because that trick used to fool me too.
What a proprietary blend actually is
A proprietary blend is a group of ingredients listed under a single total weight. The label tells you the blend adds up to, say, 8,000 mg. It does not tell you how much of each ingredient is inside. The rules only require the ingredients to be listed in order of weight, so the first one could be almost the entire 8,000 mg and the rest could be a pinch.
Why companies use them
Two reasons, and neither one is for you.
The first is cost. The expensive, research backed ingredients can be used in tiny amounts while cheap fillers make up the bulk, and the single blend total hides the whole thing.
The second is comparison. If you cannot see the dose, you cannot check it against what the research actually used, and you cannot compare it to the brand sitting next to it on the shelf.
How to read past it
Turn the tub around and look for a number next to every active ingredient. If creatine says "5,000 mg," good. If it is buried inside a "Strength Matrix" with one total, you have no real idea what you are getting. A trustworthy label gives you the dose of each ingredient, plainly.
What we do instead
That is the opposite of how we build our core lineup. Our creatine is 5,000 mg, the amount the research is built on, printed right on the front. Across the core products the label shows each ingredient and its dose, so you can read it, check it against the research, and compare it to anyone else. Every batch is lab tested, with a certificate of analysis on record. A couple of our pre-workout and energy formulas do use a labeled matrix, and we call it what it is instead of pretending otherwise.
You should not have to trust a label. You should be able to verify it.
See exactly what is in every product on our Standards page.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Ronin
Founder, Valenco