One product, one panel, one record.
Florajen Florajen Acidophilus, 30 capsules — label audit
One organism, one strain, the designator printed, and potency guaranteed at expiry — a cleaner label than most of this category manages. And the brand publishes no price at all, so the same UPC sells for $19.48 at one US retailer and $49.00 at another, a 2.5x spread with no reference figure to anchor it.
This page is an audit of a label. It records what this product’s panel discloses, what of that could be checked against a primary record, and what could not. The score below ranks this product on that disclosure and on nothing else.
The record this page rests on
- NIH label record
- Label read on
- The most recent dated artefact behind this page. Labels change; this is how old our reading of it is.
- Cohort
- Addendum — outside the founding denominators Audited 2026-07-31, after the founding cohort of 27 was frozen. It sits outside every D27 denominator this site publishes.
- How deep this went
- Label audit — the lighter pass What the label says, what basis it gives for its CFU number, whether the strains are coded, whether a government label record exists — checked and published. No full claim inventory was written for this SKU. It is a real result, and it is a shallower one than the teardowns above it, which is why the page says so before you weigh it against them.
The Label Verifiability Score for this product
100.0 out of 100
Rank 1 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 18 other products — 19 products sit on 100.0 and are tied. They hold the position jointly; no tiebreaker is applied, because every tiebreaker available here would be a number the rubric deliberately refused to weigh, smuggled back in to make a list look tidier.
The score measures one thing: how much of what you are buying this company tells you, and how much of that survives being checked against a source that is not the company. It does not measure whether the product works — this site holds no efficacy data of its own, and 0 of 294 organism slots in the founding cohort carry a strain with a human randomised trial for any male-specific outcome, so nobody in this category has evidence that would support a ranking by effect.
Computed over 66% of the rubric by weight — the share of the five questions below this record could answer. The remaining 2 questions are unanswered, and unanswered is not nought: they leave the divisor rather than dragging the score down. That share travels with the number and is never dropped — this score over 66% of the weight and the same score over all of it are different claims.
| Component | Weight | What was counted, and where | Fraction | Weight × fraction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strain identity printed on the panel | 0.24 | 1 of 1 organism slot carries a printed strain designator. | 1 / 1 = 1.0000 | 0.2400 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 1 of 1 organism slot has an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 1 / 1 = 1.0000 | 0.2000 |
| What the CFU count is measured against | 0.22 | Potency basis "through-expiry": CFU figure printed yes, single basis stated yes, basis reaches expiry yes — 3 of 3. | 3 / 3 = 1.0000 | 0.2200 |
| Printed designators that lead to a human trial | 0.20 | No designator on this panel has been searched yet. | Not answered | — excluded from the divisor, not counted as nought |
| Certification confirmed at the issuer’s own register | 0.14 | Every certification on this record is brand-asserted with the register unreachable, or not yet queried. An unreachable register is a fact about the verification infrastructure, not about this brand, so it may not move its position. | Not answered | — excluded from the divisor, not counted as nought |
0.6600 — the last column added up — divided by 0.66, the weight this record could answer, is 1.0000. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 100.0 above.
See this product’s row in the full ranking, alongside the other 153 scored products, or read what each of the five components asks and how to check it .
What this label discloses
Everything in this table is what the product itself states — on the printed panel, on the brand’s own page, or in the label record the manufacturer filed. Nothing in it is checked yet; checking is the next section.
| Disclosure | As recorded |
|---|---|
| CFU as printed | Over 20 billion live cultures per capsule |
| What that count is measured against | Through expiry |
| Strain designators | All organisms coded |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 1 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Marketed to women |
DSLD 206104 ingredient note, verbatim: "Lactobacillus acidophilus … Note: (Over 20 billion live cultures per capsule) (At time of expiration under recommended storage conditions)." The honest form of the claim. Storage on the same label: "Refrigerate for maximum freshness and potency. Can be stored at room temperature for up to two weeks and still maintain effectiveness."
The panel’s own words on potency, verbatim.
The panel guarantees the count through the expiration or best-by date. This is the only basis that is falsifiable by a reader holding the bottle.
Every organism on the panel carries a printed strain designator. Whether those designators lead anywhere is a separate question, answered below.
| Organism as printed | Designator as printed | Quantity as printed | What the designator resolves to | The query we ran |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lactobacillus acidophilus | LA-14 | Over 20 billion live cultures per capsule | Not yet checked | — |
What of that is verifiable
A disclosure is verifiable when a reader can open a record that neither we nor the brand controls and see the same thing. Below is every dated artefact this page rests on. What is absent from this list is not verified, however reasonable it sounds.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 206104 (opens in a new tab) captured The current Florajen-brand record, 30 count, on market. Source for the at-expiry basis statement verbatim, for the label seal transcription, and for the storage and Cold Chain Commitment statements. Its own ingredient row is species-only, which is why the designator is taken from the brand page and corroborated separately.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 34129 (opens in a new tab) captured Older American Lifeline record, 30 count, UPC 7 39423 11048 4 — the hard match to the retailer barcode 739423110484 on both priced listings. Also the source for the older label's vaginal-flora positioning and for the earlier formulation (rice maltodextrin plus gelatin capsules), which has since been revised.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — florajen-acidophilus-pdp-2026-07-31https://www.florajen.com/products/florajen-acidophilus — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured Fetched directly, HTTP 200. Source for the LA-14 designator in the brand's own Ingredients block, for the current other-ingredients list, for the "immune, digestive, vaginal & urinary health" positioning, for the reference list and its three conflicting survey footnotes, and for the fact that the page carries no cart and no price.
How many of its strains have a human trial for what it is sold for
Across the frozen founding cohort, 0 of 294 organism slots (0.0%) carry an organism with a human randomised controlled trial for any male-specific outcome. Not for this product — for all 27 of the founding teardowns, taken together. That is the number to hold against any men’s probiotic, including this one.
Two further founding-cohort figures for context: only 43 of 294 organism slots carry a strain with any human RCT at all under the exact code printed on the label, and only 2 of 27 products have a published human trial of the finished formula — the thing actually in the bottle. All three figures divide by the frozen cohort of 27 teardowns and 294 organism slots, never by every teardown on this site.
A word on what a designator has to clear before it counts here. The organism must be named with the exact strain code that appears in the trial, the trial must be in humans, and the code must return that trial when a reader searches it. A species name does not qualify: the trials in this field are of strains, and a species contains thousands of them.
What it costs per day
What certification it holds, checked at the issuer’s own register
A badge on a bottle is a claim like any other. Every row below was checked — or not checked — at the certifier’s own public register, never at the badge. Across the frozen founding cohort, 2 of 27 products hold a certification we could confirm at the issuer — a founding-cohort figure, not a count over every teardown on this site.
| Programme | Status at the issuer | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Label seals with no named issuer (Gluten free, Non GMO, Allergen Free, Made in USA, GMP Certified) | Not checked | 31 July 2026 |
Label seals with no named issuer (Gluten free, Non GMO, Allergen Free, Made in USA, GMP Certified)
We have not queried this register for this product. It does not mean the product holds nothing.
Transcribed in DSLD 206104 verbatim as "Allergen Free / GF Gluten free / Non GMO / Made in USA / GMP Certified Good Manufacturing Practice". No issuer is named for any of them. "Non GMO" is the bare adjective, not Non-GMO Project Verified. "GMP Certified" names no registrar and no certificate number. There is no NSF mark, no USP mark, no Informed Choice, no BSCG. Recorded as not checked rather than refuted, because no register was invoked by the label and so there was nothing to query.
How it differs from the same brand’s women’s version
Across the fourteen same-brand men’s-versus-women’s label diffs run inside the frozen founding cohort, zero men’s or default formulas contain a probiotic strain, identified by designator, that was selected on male-specific evidence. In eight of the fourteen the sex-specific differentiator is a botanical or a mineral, and in five of the fourteen the women’s SKU is better-specified, cheaper, or both — “better-specified” meaning the panel that discloses more, never the panel with more in it. The rule behind each of those counts, and all fourteen pairs classified against it , are published in full. Diffs run on teardowns added since sit outside this fourteen, and outside the sentence above.
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 the-brands-own-footnote-contradicts-its-own-claim
The reference list reads "#1 Pharmacist Recommended Probiotic based on 2025 IQVIA physician survey data" — the claim says pharmacist, the substantiation says physician. A separate footnote cites a 2015 DMD Healthcare Research survey of pharmacists, and a third cites a 2016 American Lifeline market survey. Three different surveys, one superlative.
The record: florajen.com/products/florajen-acidophilus reference list, verbatim, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.florajen.com/products/florajen-acidophilus — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 2 a-2-5x-price-spread-on-an-identical-upc
UPC 739423110484 sells for $19.48 at Herbsdaily and $49.00 at Mountainside Medical, and the brand publishes no reference price at all. Refrigerated shipping is part of the explanation — Herbsdaily ships this item in an iced styrofoam package — but a buyer has no anchor for what the product is supposed to cost.
The record: Herbsdaily and Mountainside Medical listings, both UPC 739423110484, checked 2026-07-31; DSLD 34129 UPC cross-check: 739423110484 matches — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 3 the-reference-list-is-mostly-about-organisms-this-product-does-not-contain
The page's roughly 40-item reference list is dominated by LGG, B. longum BB536, VSL#3, B. infantis 35624 and multi-species mixtures. The product is one strain of L. acidophilus. Citation volume is doing work the evidence is not.
The record: florajen.com/products/florajen-acidophilus reference list, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.florajen.com/products/florajen-acidophilus — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 4 live-cultures-is-not-cfu
The brand counts in "live cultures" and never in CFU; retailers restate the same number as "20 Billion CFUs". Those are not guaranteed to be the same measurement, and no one reconciles them.
The record: florajen.com and DSLD 206104 ("live cultures") versus retailer listings ("CFUs"), 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 5 cold-chain-product-sold-by-mail-order
The at-expiry guarantee is conditional on storage, the brand's own room-temperature grace period is two weeks, and not every retailer ships this product cold. The guarantee is real; the buyer carries the cold chain.
The record: DSLD 206104 storage statement and Cold Chain Commitment statement, verbatim, 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 6 one-capsule-equals-ten-cups-of-yogurt
Still carried on retailer listings from the older label. A mass-of-organisms comparison, not an efficacy comparison.
The record: Older Florajen label wording, DSLD 34129, still reproduced on retailer listings 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
What we could not verify
Every gap below is published rather than deleted. Most are derived automatically from the empty fields in this page’s own record, so a gap cannot be hidden by leaving a box blank.
- 1 strain designator not looked up
- These designators are printed on the panel and have not been searched. They are unchecked, not empty.
- Label seals with no named issuer (Gluten free, Non GMO, Allergen Free, Made in USA, GMP Certified) status
- Transcribed in DSLD 206104 verbatim as "Allergen Free / GF Gluten free / Non GMO / Made in USA / GMP Certified Good Manufacturing Practice". No issuer is named for any of them. "Non GMO" is the bare adjective, not Non-GMO Project Verified. "GMP Certified" names no registrar and no certificate number. There is no NSF mark, no USP mark, no Informed Choice, no BSCG. Recorded as not checked rather than refuted, because no register was invoked by the label and so there was nothing to query.
- A US retail price, and therefore the cost per day
- Florajen publishes no price and no MSRP — the brand's product page has no cart. The two US retailer prices found on the identical UPC 739423110484 differ by 2.5x and are recorded rather than averaged: Herbsdaily at $19.48 (out of stock at the time of checking) and Mountainside Medical at $49.00 (in stock). At one capsule daily that is a cost per day of $0.65 to $1.63. No single figure is published here because no single figure exists: refrigerated shipping is part of the reason for the spread — Herbsdaily states it ships this item in an iced styrofoam package — but the buyer has no anchor either way, and inventing a midpoint would manufacture a number the market does not offer.
- A men’s-versus-women’s label diff
- The same brand’s women’s SKU has not been compared against this panel.
- A brand price, or any single US retail price
- Florajen has no cart and publishes no MSRP. Two US retailers carrying the identical UPC differ by 2.5x — $19.48 and $49.00 — and both are recorded rather than averaged. See the price note.
- Whether the "live cultures" count and a CFU count are the same measurement
- The brand's own materials say "live cultures" and never "CFU". Walgreens and other retailers restate the same figure as "20 Billion CFUs". A live-culture count and a colony-forming-unit count are not guaranteed to be the same measurement, and nothing in the brand's materials reconciles them. The figure published here is the brand's own wording.
- Any human-trial adjudication for LA-14
- This was a targeted label audit and no PubMed query was run against the designator. The strain is named and traceable; whether it carries a human randomised controlled trial under this exact code was not established in this pass, and no count is published.
- The substantiation behind the "#1 Pharmacist Recommended Probiotic" superlative
- Three different surveys are footnoted for one superlative, and the closest one contradicts the claim it supports. See the findings below.
How to check every line of this page yourself
Nothing on this page requires trusting us. Every claim above resolves to a record you can open:
- Open the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record linked at the top of this page. It is the label the manufacturer filed, not our transcription of it.
- Compare the CFU line and the suggested-use line against the disclosure table above. If they disagree with us, we are wrong and we want to know.
- Take any strain designator from the panel and run the query printed beside it. The query is published precisely so you can get a different answer than we did.
- Divide the price by the number of days the label’s own dose instructions make the container last. That arithmetic is the whole of the cost-per-day row.
- Search the certifier’s own register for this product, not for the brand. A company can participate in a programme without this product being on its list.
Start with what is good, because there is more of it here than in most of this category.
One organism. One strain. The designator printed. Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-14, over 20 billion live cultures per capsule — and because there is only one organism, that count unambiguously belongs to a named strain. Most of this category publishes a total and hides the roster; this label does the opposite.
And the potency has a time anchor. The government’s own transcription of the label reads “(At time of expiration under recommended storage conditions)”. That is the honest form of the claim, and roughly half this category declines to make it.
Two caveats travel with the good news. LA-14 is a supplier code, not a public deposit number — a Danisco/DuPont culture, traceable through a vendor rather than lookupable in ATCC, DSM, CNCM or NCIMB. And the brand counts in “live cultures”, never in CFU, while retailers restate the same figure as “20 Billion CFUs”. Those are not guaranteed to be the same measurement.
Now the part a buyer meets first.
Florajen publishes no price. No cart, no MSRP. The identical UPC sells for $19.48 at one US retailer and $49.00 at another — a 2.5x spread, $0.65 to $1.63 a day, with no reference figure anywhere. Refrigerated shipping explains part of it, and it does not explain a buyer having no idea what the product costs.
Two smaller things worth naming. The page’s roughly forty-item reference list is mostly about organisms this product does not contain — LGG, BB536, VSL#3, B. infantis 35624, multi-species mixtures — for a product that is one strain of L. acidophilus. And the “#1 Pharmacist Recommended Probiotic” superlative is footnoted to 2025 IQVIA physician survey data. The claim says pharmacist; its own substantiation says physician.
Finally, the catalogue. Florajen sells three women’s SKUs and no men’s SKU at all — and this product, which carries no gendered name, claims support for “vaginal & urinary health”, with the older label leading on “a Healthy Balance of Vaginal Flora”. It is not a men’s probiotic, and the brand does not pretend otherwise.