At CVS Health, fulfilling our purpose of helping people on their path to better health also means making it easier for our customers to make health- and wellness-driven choices in our CVS Pharmacy stores.
In our commitment to being a trusted partner in proactive wellness solutions, we’re enhancing the self-care options in our CVS Pharmacy aisles, including new vitamin and supplement testing standards and a wider assortment of products in new categories.
Our “Tested to Be Trusted” program
We understand that transparency is key to helping customers make decisions about the vitamins and supplements they take.
That’s why we’ve launched our “Tested to Be Trusted” program, which requires that all products with a supplement panel, including all national brands, sold in our stores and online would be required to undergo third-party testing to confirm the accuracy of ingredients on each label and to ensure products are free from any concerning additives and ingredients.
We are the first and only national retailer to now require all vitamins and supplements to undergo third-party testing.
We’ve completed testing on all 1,400 vitamins and supplements from 152 brands across 11 categories, including diet and nutrition, pain and digestive, sold in our CVS Pharmacy stores and on cvs.com. During testing, 7 percent of products failed, resulting in either the update of label ingredient claims or the product being pulled from CVS Pharmacy shelves.
Going forward, any new vitamin and supplement products will undergo testing before being sold by CVS Pharmacy.
As part of our “Tested to Be Trusted” program, all products with a supplemental panel must be certified by NSF International, verified by USP (The United States Pharmacopeia) or participate in CVS Pharmacy’s required third party testing program conducted through the NSF or Eurofins.
The testing process includes:
Dietary ingredient review and testing: Verifies that the dietary ingredients listed on the supplement facts panel are in the product in the amount stated
Contaminant review: Verifies that there are no harmful levels of certain specified contaminants in the product.
From bee pollen to yoga mats: Our expanded wellness selection
In addition to more transparency in our vitamin and supplement selection, we’re also working to make it easier for customers to incorporate self-care into their daily routine.
More than 300 new products will be introduced to more than 3,000 CVS Pharmacy locations nationwide by the end of 2019 as part of our “Treat Yourself Well” campaign. The new products cover a range of wellness categories, including cognitive, digestive, mood and sleep therapies, and will include collagen protein, essential oils and aromatherapy stress spray, bone broth protein, beet root powder, weighted blankets, yoga mats, free weights, bee pollen and honey immunity products.
A history of bold, health-focused choices
Our self-care enhancements are just the latest of many bold decisions we’ve made with the health of our CVS Pharmacy customers in mind. Since the removal of tobacco from our stores in 2014, we’ve taken many major steps to help people on their path to better health within our retail business, including:
The removal of SPF less than 15 from shelves
The reformulation of nearly 600 store brand beauty and personal care products to remove parabens, phthalates and formaldehyde donors
The CVS Beauty Mark initiative to lead positive change around transparency in beauty in order to educate customers on the difference between authentic and digitally altered imagery.