Short answer: an NPN (Natural Product Number) is a licence issued by Health Canada confirming it has reviewed that specific product for safety, the efficacy of its permitted claims, and quality before it went on sale. It's an eight-digit number printed on the label, and you can look any NPN up in Health Canada's public database. US supplements sold into Canada often carry no NPN at all, because the US has no equivalent pre-market review and applying is paperwork most cross-border sellers skip.
Here's what the number does and doesn't mean, plus where our own products stand, including the ones still in the queue.
What Health Canada actually reviews
Canada regulates supplements as "natural health products," and unlike the US, it reviews them before sale. To get an NPN, a company submits the product to Health Canada, which assesses three things:
- Safety: the ingredients, doses and cautions, including required label warnings.
- Efficacy of permitted claims: any health claim on the label has to be one Health Canada accepts for that ingredient at that dose. This is why licensed Canadian labels read modestly: the wild promises didn't survive review.
- Quality: the product must be made to Good Manufacturing Practices, with controls on identity, purity and stability.
Pass all three and the product receives its number. Anyone can verify it in the Licensed Natural Health Products Database on Health Canada's website: type in the NPN and the licence appears, or doesn't.
What an NPN is not
Honesty section. An NPN is not an award, and it doesn't mean Health Canada endorses the product or verified it will work miracles for you personally. It's a floor, not a medal: this product was reviewed, its claims are within permitted bounds, and it's manufactured to standard. A floor is still worth a lot. Most of the world's supplement market doesn't have one. In the US, supplements reach shelves with no pre-market review at all; the regulator gets involved after problems, not before.
The cross-border blind spot
This is the practical part for Canadian buyers. When you order a US supplement online, you're usually buying a product that exists entirely outside the NPN system: never submitted, never reviewed, label claims written to US rules, in one language. It isn't automatically dangerous. It's just unreviewed, and you can't look it up. If a brand sells seriously into Canada, the NPN (or an honest statement about its application) is the receipt.
Where Rise stands, product by product
We'd rather state this precisely than vaguely. Two Rise products are NPN certified today: Grass-Fed Beef Liver Capsules ($39.99, 120 capsules; a 4-capsule serving is 3,000 mg of freeze-dried liver, a 30-day supply at about $1.33 a day) and our Bovine Colostrum Powder. The Beef Organ Complex and the Women's Organ Formula have NPN applications in progress with Health Canada: submitted, in the queue, not yet licensed. Plenty of brands would blur that distinction into a vague "Health Canada compliant." We think telling you which number exists and which is pending is the whole point of writing this post.
How to check any supplement's NPN in 30 seconds
- Find the eight-digit number on the label, usually marked "NPN."
- Search "Licensed Natural Health Products Database" and enter the number.
- No NPN on the label and no mention of an application? The product wasn't reviewed for the Canadian market. Decide accordingly.
FAQ
Is an NPN the same as FDA approval?
No, it's actually more than US supplements get. The FDA doesn't approve supplements before sale at all. An NPN means Health Canada reviewed the specific product's safety, permitted claims and quality before it reached the market.
Are supplements without an NPN illegal in Canada?
Natural health products sold in Canada are required to be licensed. In practice, foreign products ordered online for personal use flow across the border unreviewed. The practical question for a buyer isn't legality. It's whether anyone ever checked the product. Without an NPN, nobody did.
Which Rise products have an NPN?
Grass-Fed Beef Liver Capsules and Bovine Colostrum Powder are NPN certified. The Beef Organ Complex and Women's Organ Formula have applications in progress with Health Canada.
Does an NPN mean the supplement works?
It means the claims on the label are ones Health Canada permits for those ingredients at those doses, and the product is made to quality standards. Whether it helps you depends on what your diet was missing. No licence number changes that.
Written by the team at Rise Nutrition, Toronto, Canada's single-ingredient ancestral nutrition brand. Two NPNs on the shelf, two in the queue, and we'll always tell you which is which. Questions? ray@risenutritions.ca
