Four filters before a product goes on this site.

Every milligram on every label. Studied doses, the right forms, no hidden blends in our core lineup, batch-tested by an independent lab. If a product can't clear all four, it doesn't ship.

Most supplement labels are a magic trick. Studied ingredients in trace amounts. Cheap mineral forms hiding behind premium pricing. "Proprietary blends" that mean nothing has to be disclosed. Test results that no one publishes because no one tested.

We built Valenco around the opposite default. Every product clears the same four filters before it earns a spot on this site. If you want the long-form worked example, the Protein Guide walks through how we read a protein label. This page is the standard we hold every category to.

The four filters

1. Clinically studied dose, not a dusting

An ingredient on the panel proves nothing. The dose is what does the work. The studies are what define the dose.

Take ashwagandha. The body of research that matters is built on KSM-66, a standardized root extract, at 600 mg per day. That's the dose used in the clinical trials people cite when they recommend ashwagandha at all. Most "ashwagandha" capsules on Amazon list 1,300 mg of generic root powder, which is roughly the equivalent of nothing. The number looks bigger. The biology doesn't care.

We apply the same test to every active ingredient. Our Pre-Workout Tropical Sunrise lists L-Citrulline at 7,500 mg per scoop, Beta Alanine at 1,000 mg, Caffeine Anhydrous at 225 mg. Each one is sized to the dose ranges that actually show up in performance research, not a sprinkle so the ingredient can be named on the front of the tub.

2. The form matters more than the number

500 mg of magnesium oxide and 500 mg of magnesium glycinate are not the same supplement. They share a name and almost nothing else. Oxide is roughly 4% absorbed. Glycinate, malate, and citrate sit far higher. The cheap version makes the panel look impressive and the gut tolerate almost none of it.

The same trap runs through the category. Vitamin K2 as MK-4 has a half-life measured in hours; MK-7 lasts roughly 72. Folic acid is the synthetic; methylfolate is the active form. Pyridoxine HCl and Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate are both called "B6" on the label and behave differently in the body.

Our ION+ Select lists the source of each mineral on the panel: Sodium from sea salt at 600 mg, Potassium from Potassium Chloride at 444 mg, Magnesium from Di-Magnesium Malate at 40 mg. We chose the chelated form for Magnesium because the absorption gap vs oxide is biologically meaningful. The other two sit at industry-standard forms because the upside of going further wasn't enough to charge you for. The doses are smaller than what a hype brand would print, because they're the doses you can actually use.

3. Every dose printed on the panel

Proprietary blends are a legal way for a brand to hide. The FDA only requires that the total weight of the blend appears on the label, not the amount of any single ingredient inside it. A 1,000 mg "Performance Matrix" can be 990 mg of cheap filler and 10 mg of the headline ingredient. You have no way to know.

In our Pre-Workout Tropical Sunrise, Creatine, ION+ Select, and the BCAA M-line, every ingredient is printed individually with its milligram dose. No blends. No matrices. The math is on the panel.

Some SKUs in our catalog do carry blends, and we don't pretend otherwise. The Energy Pre-Workout line in Fruit Punch and Watermelon Splash uses matrix structures inherited from legacy formulas. The BCAA Fruit Punch and Watermelon Splash list a combined 2:1:1 amino line instead of breaking out each amino individually. Our whey tubs include a Whey Protein Blend (Concentrate + Isolate) and a Digestive Enzyme Blend without per-ingredient milligram breakouts, because the active is the protein itself, not a sum of separate ingredients. We label all of these honestly, we price them honestly, and the new four-filter standard above is what every new SKU clears. When we say "every dose on the label," we mean it about the products where it's true. We're moving the rest of the lineup to that bar, formula by formula.

4. Third-party tested by an independent ISO/IEC 17025 accredited lab

Every batch of every Valenco product is sent to an independent ISO/IEC 17025 accredited lab. The lab tests for identity (the ingredient is what the label says), potency (the dose is what the label says), and contaminants (heavy metals, microbials, residual solvents). A Certificate of Analysis is generated per batch. The COA is the document that proves the panel.

"Tested" is a word most brands use. "Tested by whom, on what schedule, against what spec, with a COA you can read" is the version that actually means something. Our standard is the second one. If a lot didn't pass, it doesn't ship.

What we won't sell

The standard above rules out more than it lets in. Some categories we get asked about constantly and have turned down:

Thermogenic fat burners. The category is stimulant stacks with a weight-loss narrative wrapped around them. The active ingredients that move the needle are already in a properly dosed pre-workout. The rest is marketing for an outcome no powder can promise.
Multi-ingredient nootropic stacks. A capsule with twelve cognitive ingredients at 50 mg each is twelve under-dosed ingredients. The honest version is one or two actives at the dose the research uses. We'd rather not sell the category than sell the dusted version.
CBD and hemp extracts. The regulatory picture is still moving, the dose-response data for most uses is thin, and the category attracts COA fraud at a rate that would force us to caveat every claim. Not yet.
Generic pre-built "stacks" sold as bundles of unrelated SKUs. A bundle with no thesis is a discount with a name. If we recommend a combination, the recommendation comes with the reasoning. The bundles on this site are picked because they share a use case, not because the math on three SKUs looks tidy.

The decisions you make in our place

You're the buyer. We owe you the receipts, not the verdict. That means the proprietary-blend math, the dose-density math, the COA per batch, and the form-vs-form comparisons all printed in plain text so you can check our work.

The Protein Guide is the longest worked example of how we read a label. Same logic runs through every product page on this site. If a number we publish doesn't add up to you, email us and we'll show you the math.

Why this page exists

We started Valenco because the supplement aisle made us angry. The two of us train hard, we read labels for a living, and we kept buying products from brands we trusted only to find the panel said something different than the marketing.

The four filters above aren't a positioning exercise. They're the version of a supplement brand we wished existed when we were the customer. The five SKUs in the lineup below are where the new standard is fully applied. The rest of the catalog is on the path to the same bar, formula by formula, batch by batch. Every SKU we've said no to got rejected by at least one filter.

If you spot something on a panel we missed, tell us. Both of us read the inbox.

Ronin Stern, Founder
Jake Wacha, Co-Founder