One product, one panel, one record.
NOW Foods Probiotic-10 100 Billion, 60 Veg Capsules — label audit
All ten organisms are named to strain — among the best disclosure in this whole project — and NOW's own website and the federal label database name different strains on the same UPC. The label record says B. breve Bb-03 and B. longum Bl-05; the brand's page says Bb-18 and "BI-05". A consumer cannot tell which is in the bottle.
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 the site publishes. Note that the 25 Billion SKU of this same line is a separate teardown.
- 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
69.8 out of 100
Rank 52 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 1 other product — 2 products sit on 69.8 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 | 10 of 10 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 10 / 10 = 1.0000 | 0.2400 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 10 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 10 = 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 | 7 of 10 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. | 7 / 10 = 0.7000 | 0.1400 |
| 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 |
0.6000 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.6977. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 69.8 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 | 100 Billion CFU across a 520 mg blend of 10 strains |
| What that count is measured against | Through expiry |
| Strain designators | All organisms coded |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 10 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
"This product is formulated to deliver a potency of 100 billion CFU through the best by date." Identical on the label record and the archived brand page. The same label also carries "KEEP REFRIGERATED TO MAINTAIN POTENCY."
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 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Bifidobacterium animalis lactis | BI-04 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus plantarum | Lp-115 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lacticaseibacillus casei | Lc-11 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus rhamnosus | LR-32 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lacticaseibacillus paracasei | Lpc-37 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Bifidobacterium breve | Bb-03 | — not stated separately | No records | "Bb-03"[tiab]; "Bb03"[tiab] |
| Streptococcus thermophilus | ST-21 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Lactobacillus salivarius | LS-33 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Bifidobacterium longum | Bl-05 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
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 335293 (opens in a new tab) captured On-market. UPC cross-check passed — the brand page's size table reads "60 Veg Capsules, 60 servings, SKU 2904, UPC 733739029041" and DSLD's upcSku is 7 33739 02904 1. Everything here is this SKU, not a lookalike. Sibling records 313987 (30 ct), 245925 (older 60 ct image) and 73861 (2017, off-market).
- Internet Archive capture — 20260706033333 (opens in a new tab) captured Source for price and for the website strain list that conflicts with the label record.
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, 7 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
$1.25 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $74.99 USD
- What that buys
- 60-capsule bottle (60 servings, 1 capsule daily)
- Price checked
- — the source we read it from (opens in a new tab)
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Intertek GMP Supplement Certification | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
| "Probiotic Strain Verified" / "Strain Verified" | Not checked | not checked |
| "GMP Quality Assured" | Not checked | not checked |
| Kosher (Triangle K) | Brand-asserted, unverified | not checked |
| Non-GMO | Not checked | not checked |
Intertek GMP Supplement Certification
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
No public Intertek certificate register could be found, so even the facility claim is unverifiable. Intertek's own programme page confirms the scope is the manufacturing process and facility, not finished-product contents or potency.
"Probiotic Strain Verified" / "Strain Verified"
We have not queried this register for this product. It does not mean the product holds nothing.
Not a third-party certification. It is NOW's in-house programme — strains are identity-checked on a RiboPrinter microbial characterisation system that NOW owns and operates. The label's own explanation reads "The probiotic strains in this product have been identity-verified using DNA-fingerprinting technology." It verifies identity only, not CFU count, not potency at expiry, not contaminants. The seal's visual grammar reads like a third-party mark and it is not one.
"GMP Quality Assured"
We have not queried this register for this product. It does not mean the product holds nothing.
NOW's own seal, not an issuer's mark.
Kosher (Triangle K)
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
Recorded on the label seals list. Not checked at the issuer.
Non-GMO
We have not queried this register for this product. It does not mean the product holds nothing.
A self-claim. Not "Non-GMO Project Verified" — the stronger claim is not made and must not be inferred.
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.
This brand sells no women’s counterpart to this product, so there is no diff to run.
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 website-and-federal-label-record-name-different-strains
On the same UPC, the brand's website and the NIH transcription of the brand's label name different B. breve strains, and print B. longum as Bl-05 versus "BI-05". The same conflict was documented on the 25 Billion SKU, so this is now confirmed on a second independent SKU with a different UPC — a line-wide inconsistency between NOW's website and NOW's own printed labels, not a one-off transcription artefact.
The record: DSLD 335293 (entry 2025-09-25) versus Wayback 20260706033333 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 2 designators-without-doses
Ten strain designators and no per-organism allocation across a single 520 mg, 100 billion CFU line. A designator without a dose cannot be matched to a trial dose, and any one of the ten could be a token presence — including the three with zero human trial records.
The record: DSLD 335293, single blend line
Finding 3 three-of-ten-designators-have-zero-human-trial-records
Bb-03, ST-21 and Bl-05 return nothing under a human trial filter, each checked on at least two spellings.
The record: PubMed E-utilities, human clinical-trial filter: Bb-03 → 0, ST-21 → 0, Bl-05 → 0
Finding 4 in-house-seal-in-third-party-visual-grammar
"Probiotic Strain Verified" sits on the label alongside genuine third-party marks and reads as one. It is NOW's own RiboPrinter identity check, and it verifies identity only.
The record: DSLD 335293 Seals/Symbols, "Strain Verified"
Finding 5 at-expiry-guarantee-conditioned-on-refrigeration
"KEEP REFRIGERATED TO MAINTAIN POTENCY" on a product sold by mail order and shipped through summer ambient logistics. An at-expiry guarantee conditioned on a cold chain the buyer does not control is materially weaker than the same guarantee on a shelf-stable product.
The record: DSLD 335293 and the archived brand page, identically
Finding 6 no-trial-of-the-finished-formula
There is no product-specific human trial of the finished 10-strain blend. Every substantiation on offer is borrowed from trials of component strains.
The record: Searched, none found
Finding 7 mixed-vintage-nomenclature
The panel uses post-2020 names for two organisms (Lacticaseibacillus casei, Lacticaseibacillus paracasei) while retaining pre-2020 Lactobacillus for plantarum, rhamnosus and salivarius.
The record: PMID 32293557 — 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.
- Intertek GMP Supplement Certification status
- No public Intertek certificate register could be found, so even the facility claim is unverifiable. Intertek's own programme page confirms the scope is the manufacturing process and facility, not finished-product contents or potency.
- "Probiotic Strain Verified" / "Strain Verified" status
- Not a third-party certification. It is NOW's in-house programme — strains are identity-checked on a RiboPrinter microbial characterisation system that NOW owns and operates. The label's own explanation reads "The probiotic strains in this product have been identity-verified using DNA-fingerprinting technology." It verifies identity only, not CFU count, not potency at expiry, not contaminants. The seal's visual grammar reads like a third-party mark and it is not one.
- "GMP Quality Assured" status
- NOW's own seal, not an issuer's mark.
- Kosher (Triangle K) status
- Recorded on the label seals list. Not checked at the issuer.
- Non-GMO status
- A self-claim. Not "Non-GMO Project Verified" — the stronger claim is not made and must not be inferred.
- Any Amazon price
- All four Amazon URLs in the brief return a 3.7 KB bot-check page rather than product HTML. The price used is NOW's own direct-to-consumer price.
- The brand's own product page, live
- nowfoods.com returns HTTP 403 to automated fetch. An Internet Archive snapshot from 2026-07-06 was used instead.
- Which B. breve strain is actually in the bottle
- The federal label record (transcribed from the printed label, same UPC) says Bb-03. The brand's own website says Bb-18. This is reported as a source conflict, not as a substitution.
- Per-organism CFU
- All ten sit inside one 520 mg / 100 billion CFU line with no allocation. Also, the FOS quantity in other ingredients is not disclosed.
- The Intertek certification, at any register
- No public certificate register was found.
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.
This is what the category is supposed to look like, and it still has a hole in it.
Ten organisms, ten strain designators, printed plainly. Potency guaranteed through the best by date in the brand’s own words on both the label and the page. A clean UPC match to a current, on-market federal label record. On disclosure practice, NOW is near the top of everything this project has audited, and that should be said loudly.
The hole is that NOW’s website and NOW’s own printed label do not agree about what is in the bottle. The federal transcription of the label, on this exact UPC, names B. breve Bb-03 and B. longum Bl-05. The brand’s page names Bb-18 and “BI-05” — the last with a capital i for a strain that uses a lowercase L. The same conflict was already documented on the 25 Billion SKU, so it is not a one-off: it is a line-wide inconsistency, and a buyer has no way to resolve it. The two candidate B. breve strains are not equivalent, either — Bb-03 returns nothing at all, while Bb-18 has records including a 2026 animal colitis study.
The second limit is dose. All ten strains sit in one 520 mg, 100-billion-CFU line with no allocation, and three of the ten (Bb-03, ST-21, Bl-05) have zero human trial records. Any of them could be a token presence and the label would look identical.
One practical caveat that outweighs the price table: this is the best cost-per-CFU in its own line, and CFU is the number this category competes on and the number that carries the least information. A designated strain at a trial-matched dose beats an undesignated 100 billion.