One product, one panel, one record.
Florajen Florajen Digestion (formerly Florajen3) — label audit
The website names five strains with real designators. The Supplement Facts panel names three species with none. A buyer holding the bottle cannot verify a single designator, cannot see the split between the two acidophilus strains, and cannot see how the 15 billion is allocated across five organisms — and the label this one replaced, from the same company in 2014, did disclose the per-species breakdown.
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, outside the frozen founding cohort of 27 and outside every D27 denominator.
- 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
25.6 out of 100
Rank 125 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 5 other products — 6 products sit on 25.6 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 86% of the rubric by weight — the share of the five questions below this record could answer. The remaining question is unanswered, and unanswered is not nought: it leaves the divisor rather than dragging the score down. That share travels with the number and is never dropped — this score over 86% 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 | 0 of 3 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 0 / 3 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 3 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 3 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| 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 | 0 of 3 checked organism slots resolve to at least one human randomised trial under the designator exactly as printed. This counts whether the identity leads to a trial, never what the trial found. | 0 / 3 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| 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 |
0.2200 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.2558. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 25.6 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 15 Billion Live Cultures Per Capsule at Time of Expiration Under Recommended Storage Conditions |
| What that count is measured against | Through expiry |
| Strain designators | None — species only |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 3 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
Verbatim from the panel: "Proprietary Probiotic Blend (Over 15 Billion Live Cultures Per Capsule at Time of Expiration Under Recommended Storage Conditions) (Daily Value Not Established)". This is the honest form of the claim and the only product in its batch that makes it. It is reinforced by the storage instruction — "Refrigerate for maximum freshness and potency. Can be stored at room temperature for up to two weeks and still maintain effectiveness" — and by an unusually candid sentence for a probiotic label: "Probiotics are live bacteria and naturally die off at a faster rate when not refrigerated."
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.
The panel names species only, with no strain designator anywhere. A species name is not a claim: the trials in this field are of strains, and a species can contain thousands.
| Organism as printed | Designator as printed | Quantity as printed | What the designator resolves to | The query we ran |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lactobacillus acidophilus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | "Lactobacillus acidophilus NCFM randomized" → 42 records; La-14 → 34 PubMed records |
| Bifidobacterium lactis (correct name: Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | PMID 21663486 (Waller PA et al., Scand J Gastroenterol 2011) retrieved and read |
| Bifidobacterium longum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | Five spellings, all returning no human clinical trial: "Bl-05" AND Bifidobacterium; BL05 AND longum; "Bl-05"; longum Bl-05 human; Bifidobacterium longum Bl-05 clinical trial |
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 206111 (opens in a new tab) captured NIH's transcription of the physical Florajen Digestion label, on-market, and the primary panel source for this page — because the Supplement Facts is not on florajen.com at all, which gives only an ingredients paragraph in marketing prose. The record carries "Proprietary Probiotic Blend" with nested rows for Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium animalis lactis and Bifidobacterium longum, each with quantity "0 NP" — not provided. It records no UPC and no servings-per-container, so a barcode cross-check of the SKU on sale was not possible.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — florajen-digestion-2026-07-31https://www.florajen.com/products/florajen-digestion — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured Fetched directly, HTTP 200, no bot-blocking. The source of the five strain designators that appear nowhere on the label, of the refrigeration and die-off language, of the padded clinical reference block, and — via florajen.com/faq and /about — of the company identity (American Lifeline Inc.), the GMP-certified-facility claim, and the published kosher certification correction. The brand does not sell direct; the site is a where-to-buy.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — crowderspharmacy-3244910-001-2026-07-31https://crowderspharmacy.com/3244910-001.html — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured The second, independent source for the panel text: a manufacturer product-data feed carried by two unaffiliated pharmacy e-commerce sites, crowderspharmacy.com and stlhillsrx.com, both under item code 3244910-001. Their panel text agrees verbatim with the government transcription, including the at-expiration potency wording and the other-ingredients line. Also the price source, $18.29 at both.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 34075 (opens in a new tab) captured The predecessor label — Florajen3, brand American Lifeline, the same company — used only to establish the transparency regression. It was not a proprietary blend: it disclosed Lactobacillus acidophilus over 7.5 billion, Bifidobacterium lactis over 6.0 billion and Bifidobacterium longum over 1.5 billion, which reconciles exactly to the 15 billion the current blend states as a single figure. A sibling record, 34079, covers the same predecessor line.
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.
For this product specifically, 0 organism slots carry a strain with a human RCT under the exact designator printed on the label.
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
$0.61 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $18.29 USD
- What that buys
- 30 capsules, 1 capsule daily, 30 servings ($18.29 ÷ 30 = $0.6097). Cost per billion CFU per day, $0.041 — by far the cheapest in its batch and roughly 27 times cheaper per organism than the most expensive product audited alongside it. Other sizes: 30 and 60 in store; 30, 60, 90 and 120 through the brand's own site.
- Price checked
- — the source we read it fromhttps://crowderspharmacy.com/3244910-001.html — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Kosher (KO Kosher Service) | Register unreachable | 31 July 2026 |
| GMP-certified facilities | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
| Non-GMO | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
Kosher (KO Kosher Service)
The certifier’s register could not be queried at all. That is a finding about the verification infrastructure, not about the brand.
The brand's FAQ names KO Kosher Service as its certifier. The register at kosherservice.com returned a 114-byte empty response, so the certification is brand-asserted and unverified. What is verified — and it is the more interesting half — is an error the brand disclosed itself, verbatim from florajen.com/faq: "Important Kosher Certification Correction. Please be advised that packaging on all sizes and counts of FLORAJEN3 For Digestion, FLORAJEN WOMEN, FLORAJEN Acidophilus and FLORAJEN KIDS mistakenly includes the OK Kosher Certification. Instead, the packaging should have been marked with the KO Kosher Service Certification. KO Kosher Service is entirely separate from and unaffiliated with OK Kosher." Credit for publishing it. The operative fact for a buyer is that a certification mark on the physical package is the wrong certifier's mark, confirmed by the brand.
GMP-certified facilities
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
"Manufactured in the USA in GMP-certified facilities" names no certifying body, so it is unverifiable by construction — there is no register to check. Recorded as brand-asserted.
Non-GMO
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
A self-claim, not "Non-GMO Project Verified". No mark and no registry entry. No third-party potency or identity laboratory is named anywhere on the site.
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-strain-designators-live-in-marketing-prose-not-on-the-panel
The website says, verbatim, "Florajen Digestion contains over 15 billion live cultures per capsule of Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-14, Bifidobacterium lactis Bl-07, Bifidobacterium lactis HN019, Lactobacillus acidophilus NCFM and Bifidobacterium longum BL-05." The Supplement Facts panel says "Proprietary Probiotic Blend… Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium lactis, Bifidobacterium longum" — three species, zero designators, zero per-strain counts. The five collapse cleanly onto the three, so the two statements do not contradict each other. They are simply not in the same place: the designators are real, they are specific, and a buyer holding the bottle cannot verify one of them.
The record: florajen.com/products/florajen-digestion, verbatim, against DSLD 206111 (transcribed from the physical label) and a manufacturer product-data feed carried by crowderspharmacy.com and stlhillsrx.com, which agree with it verbatim; all 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 2 the-current-label-discloses-strictly-less-than-the-label-it-replaced
The predecessor, Florajen3 under American Lifeline (DSLD 34075, entry 2014), was not a proprietary blend. It disclosed per-species counts: Lactobacillus acidophilus over 7.5 billion, Bifidobacterium lactis over 6.0 billion, Bifidobacterium longum over 1.5 billion — reconciling exactly to 15 billion. Same company, same three species, same total; the per-organism breakdown was removed and replaced with "Proprietary Probiotic Blend". A transparency regression, verified against both government records.
The record: DSLD 34075 (Florajen3, American Lifeline, entry 2014-06-25) against DSLD 206111 (Florajen Digestion, entry 2019-08-23), both read 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 3 one-of-the-five-website-strains-has-no-human-clinical-literature
B. longum Bl-05 returns four PubMed records in total under that designator, none of them clinical: two encapsulation studies, an oligosaccharide growth-substrate screen, and an unrelated fish study where "BL-05.7" is a dose label. The nearest in-vivo work is a probiotic cheese study in Wistar rats. The absence was established across five query spellings. The other four website strains — NCFM, La-14, Bl-07 and HN019 — do have real human trial literature.
The record: Five PubMed spellings run 2026-07-31: "Bl-05" AND Bifidobacterium; BL05 AND longum; "Bl-05"; longum Bl-05 human; Bifidobacterium longum Bl-05 clinical trial. Records: PMID 41308522, 29572754, 23580006, plus the unrelated fish study; nearest in-vivo work PMID 22720913
Finding 4 the-wrong-kosher-certifiers-mark-is-printed-on-the-package
The brand published the correction itself, verbatim: packaging on all sizes and counts of Florajen3 For Digestion, Florajen Women, Florajen Acidophilus and Florajen Kids "mistakenly includes the OK Kosher Certification", where it should carry KO Kosher Service, which is "entirely separate from and unaffiliated with OK Kosher". Credit for disclosing it voluntarily — most brands would have quietly reprinted. The operative fact for a buyer is that a certification mark on the physical package belongs to a certifier that did not certify it.
The record: florajen.com/faq, verbatim, read 2026-07-31; the KO Kosher Service register at kosherservice.com returned a 114-byte empty response the same day
Finding 5 one-capsule-equals-ten-cups-of-yogurt
Retailer-carried manufacturer copy states "1 capsule of Florajen equals 10+ cups of yogurt" with no basis given. It compares a cell count against a food with an entirely different organism profile, which is not an equivalence in any sense that predicts an effect.
The record: Manufacturer product-data feed as carried by crowderspharmacy.com and stlhillsrx.com, item code 3244910-001, read 2026-07-31
Finding 6 the-clinical-reference-block-is-padded-with-other-organisms
The page's reference list cites studies on Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, VSL#3 and B. infantis 35624 — none of which is in this product — alongside WebMD, Harvard Health blog posts and "Based on market survey conducted by American Lifeline December 2016". A citation block that looks substantial, built substantially on other organisms and consumer websites, is a padding pattern.
The record: florajen.com/products/florajen-digestion reference block, read 2026-07-31, against the product's own three-species panel
Finding 7 a-gelatin-capsule-behind-prominent-free-from-copy
Other ingredients are microcrystalline cellulose, gelatin capsule, magnesium stearate and silicon dioxide. The site's allergen and free-from copy is prominent; the gelatin is visible only in the other-ingredients line, and it makes the product unsuitable for vegetarian and vegan buyers.
The record: Panel other-ingredients line, double-sourced from DSLD 206111 and the manufacturer feed carried by two pharmacy retailers, 2026-07-31
Finding 8 the-government-record-carries-no-upc
DSLD 206111 records no UPC and no servings-per-container, so the current SKU could not be tied to the label database by barcode. The panel text is nonetheless double-sourced and the two sources agree verbatim, which is the strongest corroboration available for this product.
The record: DSLD 206111 record fields against the manufacturer product-data feed carried by crowderspharmacy.com and stlhillsrx.com, item code 3244910-001, both 2026-07-31
Finding 9 no-brand-controlled-price-exists
Florajen does not sell direct, so there is no brand MSRP and cost per day depends on which pharmacy a buyer walks into: $18.29 verified at two independent retailers against a $23.16 average cash price cited by a third source — a 27% spread on the same bottle.
The record: crowderspharmacy.com and stlhillsrx.com, both $18.29 for item 3244910-001, against singlecare.com's stated $23.16 average cash price, all 2026-07-31
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.
- Kosher (KO Kosher Service) status
- The brand's FAQ names KO Kosher Service as its certifier. The register at kosherservice.com returned a 114-byte empty response, so the certification is brand-asserted and unverified. What is verified — and it is the more interesting half — is an error the brand disclosed itself, verbatim from florajen.com/faq: "Important Kosher Certification Correction. Please be advised that packaging on all sizes and counts of FLORAJEN3 For Digestion, FLORAJEN WOMEN, FLORAJEN Acidophilus and FLORAJEN KIDS mistakenly includes the OK Kosher Certification. Instead, the packaging should have been marked with the KO Kosher Service Certification. KO Kosher Service is entirely separate from and unaffiliated with OK Kosher." Credit for publishing it. The operative fact for a buyer is that a certification mark on the physical package is the wrong certifier's mark, confirmed by the brand.
- GMP-certified facilities status
- "Manufactured in the USA in GMP-certified facilities" names no certifying body, so it is unverifiable by construction — there is no register to check. Recorded as brand-asserted.
- Non-GMO status
- A self-claim, not "Non-GMO Project Verified". No mark and no registry entry. No third-party potency or identity laboratory is named anywhere on the site.
- A men’s-versus-women’s label diff
- The same brand’s women’s SKU has not been compared against this panel.
- Any strain designator on the physical label
- The panel names three species and prints no designator for any of them. The five designators — LA-14, Bl-07, HN019, NCFM and BL-05 — exist only in marketing prose on florajen.com. They reconcile cleanly with the three species lines (two acidophilus strains, two B. animalis subsp. lactis strains, one B. longum), so the two statements are not contradictory, but a buyer holding the bottle can confirm none of them.
- How the 15 billion is allocated across the five website-named strains
- The panel gives one blend figure. The government record transcribes each nested organism's quantity as "0 NP" — not provided. The split between LA-14 and NCFM, and between Bl-07 and HN019, is disclosed nowhere.
- Whether the government label record corresponds to the SKU on sale, by barcode
- DSLD 206111 carries no UPC and no servings-per-container, so a UPC cross-check of the current SKU against the label database was not possible. The panel text itself is double-sourced — the government transcription of the physical label and a manufacturer product-data feed carried by two unaffiliated pharmacy e-commerce sites agree verbatim — but the barcode tie could not be made.
- Whether the kosher certification is current at its issuer
- kosherservice.com returned a 114-byte empty response. Brand-asserted, unverified — not refuted.
- A brand-controlled price
- Florajen does not sell direct, so there is no brand unit price to check and cost per day varies by pharmacy. $18.29 is the verified low, from two independent retailers; singlecare.com cites $23.16 as an average cash price.
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.
The strain names are real. They are just not on the bottle.
Florajen’s website says this capsule contains Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-14, Bifidobacterium lactis Bl-07, Bifidobacterium lactis HN019, Lactobacillus acidophilus NCFM and Bifidobacterium longum BL-05. Five organisms, five real designators, four of them with genuine human trial literature. The Supplement Facts panel says “Proprietary Probiotic Blend… Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium lactis, Bifidobacterium longum.” Three species. Zero designators. Zero per-strain counts.
The two statements do not contradict each other — the five collapse cleanly onto the three species lines, two acidophilus strains, two B. animalis subsp. lactis strains, one B. longum. They simply are not in the same place. A buyer holding the bottle can verify none of them, cannot see the split between LA-14 and NCFM, and cannot see how the 15 billion divides across five organisms. The panel is not even on florajen.com; the site gives an ingredients paragraph in marketing prose, and the panel text here comes from the government label record and a manufacturer data feed carried by two pharmacies, which agree word for word.
And the label used to say more. The predecessor — Florajen3, the same company, 2014 — was not a proprietary blend. It disclosed per-species counts: L. acidophilus over 7.5 billion, B. lactis over 6.0 billion, B. longum over 1.5 billion. That reconciles exactly to 15 billion. Same company, same three species, same total, and the breakdown was removed and replaced with the words “Proprietary Probiotic Blend”. Disclosure went backwards.
Now the credit, and there is a lot of it. This is the only product in its batch that guarantees its cell count at the time of expiration — “Over 15 Billion Live Cultures Per Capsule at Time of Expiration Under Recommended Storage Conditions” — while four others state no basis at all. It ships and stores cold, and the label says why in a sentence most brands would never print: “Probiotics are live bacteria and naturally die off at a faster rate when not refrigerated.” At $0.61 a day it delivers those 15 billion cells for $0.041 per billion per day — about twenty-seven times cheaper per organism than the most expensive product audited alongside it. The oldest-fashioned, cheapest, refrigerated pharmacy product is the one making the strongest potency promise.
One of the five strains has nothing behind it. B. longum BL-05 returns four PubMed records under that designator across five query spellings, and not one is a human trial: two encapsulation studies, a growth-substrate screen, and an unrelated fish paper where “BL-05.7” is a dose label. The nearest in-vivo work is probiotic cheese in rats.
And there is a certification mark on the package that belongs to the wrong certifier — which the brand disclosed itself. Its own FAQ states that packaging across four Florajen products “mistakenly includes the OK Kosher Certification” when it should carry KO Kosher Service, a body it notes is “entirely separate from and unaffiliated with” OK Kosher. Most companies would have quietly reprinted. The correction is to their credit; the mark on the box is still the wrong one, and KO Kosher’s own register returned an empty response, so the certification itself remains brand-asserted.
Florajen sells three women’s SKUs and no men’s SKU, and describes this one at retail as a probiotic “for Women & Men”. The same asymmetry, one more time.