One product, one panel, one record.
Symprove Symprove (Original), 70 mL daily shot — label audit
Four strains, every one carrying a public NCIMB deposit number — the best strain disclosure in its batch — and the brand publishes no CFU figure of any kind. The two counts in circulation come from a US importer and an independent trial, they disagree by roughly threefold, and the ingredient line ends "Relative proportions will vary", which is the brand stating in writing that the ratio between its four strains is not fixed batch to batch.
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
- No NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record is on file for this product in this teardown.
- 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.
- What did not survive verification
- Part of this page was refuted or could not be reproduced Three bounded items, and none of them is the strain list — the four NCIMB accessions are printed on the brand's own ingredients page and are the strongest disclosure in their batch. First, there is no quotable potency figure for this product. Symprove publishes no CFU count anywhere, and the two figures in public circulation come from a US importer (10 billion per 70 mL shot) and from an independent trial (about 29 billion per shot); they differ by roughly threefold, neither is the brand's, and this page therefore publishes no CFU claim rather than picking one. Second, the per-strain split is not merely undisclosed but explicitly unfixed — the label's own footnote reads "Relative proportions will vary" — so no per-organism quantity may be quoted, estimated or divided out of a total for this product, in any batch. Third, the randomised-trial attribution on the four organism slots is product-level and not strain-level: it rests on one King's College London trial of the whole four-strain preparation (PMID 41126787, Mov Disord 2025, NCT05146921), and no per-designator PubMed enumeration was run in this pass. That must not be read as four independent strain literatures, and no per-strain RCT count is published here. What did survive verification: the four NCIMB deposit numbers as printed, the "proportions will vary" footnote, the absence of any brand CFU figure across five brand surfaces, the in-house testing statement quoted from the brand's own scientist, the UK regulatory position quoted from the brand's own FAQ, and the complete five-item catalogue with no gendered SKU in either direction.
The Label Verifiability Score for this product
51.2 out of 100
Rank 90 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 1 other product — 2 products sit on 51.2 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 | 4 of 4 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 4 / 4 = 1.0000 | 0.2400 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 4 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 4 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| What the CFU count is measured against | 0.22 | Potency basis "no-cfu-number": CFU figure printed no, single basis stated no, basis reaches expiry no — 0 of 3. | 0 / 3 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| Printed designators that lead to a human trial | 0.20 | 4 of 4 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. | 4 / 4 = 1.0000 | 0.2000 |
| 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 |
0.4400 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.5116. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 51.2 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 | No CFU figure recorded |
| What that count is measured against | No CFU figure |
| Strain designators | All organisms coded |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 4 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
There is no number to quote. The product detail page, the Ingredients page, "Why it works" and "Quality & standards" were all read. The strongest wording anywhere on Symprove's own site is "Billions of microbiome balancing bacteria in 4 patented strains" and "billions of live bacteria". No count, and therefore no basis — not at expiry, not at manufacture, not at all.
The panel’s own words on potency, verbatim.
No CFU figure appears anywhere on the panel.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L. rhamnosus (correct name: Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus) | NCIMB 30174 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PMID 41126787 (Leta 2025, Mov Disord; trial registration NCT05146921) |
| E. lactis (correct name: Enterococcus lactis (reported as Enterococcus faecium in the trial literature)) | NCIMB 30176 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PMID 41126787 (Leta 2025, Mov Disord; trial registration NCT05146921) |
| L. plantarum (correct name: Lactiplantibacillus plantarum) | NCIMB 30173 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PMID 41126787 (Leta 2025, Mov Disord; trial registration NCT05146921) |
| L. acidophilus (correct name: Lactobacillus acidophilus) | NCIMB 30175 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PMID 41126787 (Leta 2025, Mov Disord; trial registration NCT05146921) |
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.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — symprove-ingredients-page-2026-07-31https://www.symprove.com/pages/ingredients — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured Fetched directly, HTTP 200. The only surface on which this product's strain designators exist — the product detail page itself carries none. Source for the ingredient line verbatim, including all four NCIMB accessions and the "*Relative proportions will vary" footnote that is the sharpest single fact on this page.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — symprove-pdp-and-quality-standards-2026-07-31https://www.symprove.com/products/symprove — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured Fetched directly, HTTP 200, together with /pages/quality-standards, /pages/why-it-works, /policies/shipping-policy and /products.json. Source for the absence of any CFU figure across every brand surface, for the in-house testing statement verbatim, for the FAQ language on UK probiotic regulation, for the shipping and geo-restriction position, and for the complete five-item catalogue that contains no gendered SKU.
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
$3.71 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $105.95 USD
- What that buys
- 4 x 500 mL pack (2,000 mL, about 28.6 daily 70 mL shots) via US importer MicroBio Health
- Price checked
- — the source we read it fromhttps://microbiohealth.us/products/symprove-4-x-500ml-pack — 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 |
|---|---|---|
| In-house batch testing, with unnamed external accredited laboratories | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
| Which? Best Buy award | Not checked | 31 July 2026 |
In-house batch testing, with unnamed external accredited laboratories
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
Verbatim from the Quality & Standards page, quoting Symprove's Lead Fermentation Scientist: "Symprove quality tests every batch within our in-house laboratory… Our results are periodically validated by external accredited laboratories." The external laboratories are not named, and validation is described as periodic rather than per batch, so there is no issuer and no register to query. There is no NSF mark, no USP mark, no Informed Sport and no Non-GMO Project verification.
Which? Best Buy award
We have not queried this register for this product. It does not mean the product holds nothing.
Displayed under a "Recognised for excellence" heading. A consumer-magazine review, not a certification, and recorded here so it is not mistaken for one.
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 relative-proportions-will-vary
The ingredient line ends "*Relative proportions will vary." The brand is stating in writing that the ratio between its four strains is not fixed batch to batch. Any one of the four could be a token presence in any given bottle, and the label says so.
The record: symprove.com/pages/ingredients, Original flavour ingredient line, verbatim, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.symprove.com/pages/ingredients — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 2 no-cfu-figure-from-the-brand-and-two-public-figures-that-disagree-threefold
Symprove publishes no count anywhere on its own site. The US importer says 10 billion per shot; the independent 2025 trial dosed about 29 billion per shot. Nobody reconciles them, least of all the brand.
The record: symprove.com PDP, ingredients, why-it-works and quality-standards pages, all 2026-07-31; MicroBio Health listing; PMID 41126787 dosing (4.08 x 10^8 CFU/mL x 70 mL/day) — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 3 clinically-proven-resting-on-an-in-vitro-gut-simulator
"Clinically proven to deliver 99.3% of bacteria straight to your gut" — and the page's own footnote says the figure rests on a SHIME in-vitro gut simulator (Moens et al. 2019). "Clinically proven" is doing work an in-vitro model cannot do.
The record: symprove.com claim and its own footnote, verbatim, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.symprove.com/products/symprove — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 4 ninety-four-percent-feel-the-difference-is-a-customer-survey
Footnoted, correctly, as "according to a 2021 survey of 490 Symprove customers." Self-selected existing customers, no control group. The disclaimer is honest; the number is not an efficacy result.
The record: symprove.com claim and footnote, verbatim, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.symprove.com/products/symprove — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 5 contains-an-enterococcus
NCIMB 30176 is an Enterococcus — a genus that includes clinically significant opportunistic pathogens. Not a defect on its face, and it warrants an explicit safety review before any recommendation, particularly for immunocompromised readers. Stated here rather than buried.
The record: symprove.com/pages/ingredients, Original flavour ingredient line, verbatim, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.symprove.com/pages/ingredients — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 6 not-legally-a-probiotic-in-its-home-market
The brand's own FAQ, verbatim: "The term 'probiotic' is considered an unauthorized health claim under UK and EU regulations and therefore prohibited for use." Symprove calls it a "live and active bacteria supplement" in the UK, while US-facing importers sell it as a probiotic.
The record: symprove.com FAQ, verbatim, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.symprove.com/products/symprove — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 8 most-expensive-in-its-batch-with-no-us-support-channel
About $3.71 a day through a US importer, roughly twice the next product in its batch, for a brand whose subscriptions are UK-only and whose international orders must be arranged by phone or email.
The record: MicroBio Health listing $105.95 for 4 x 500 mL, 2026-07-31; symprove.com FAQ and shipping policy, verbatim — open ithttps://microbiohealth.us/products/symprove-4-x-500ml-pack — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
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.
- The CFU figure on the panel
- No CFU figure was recorded for this product. Either the panel prints none or it was not transcribed; this teardown does not yet distinguish between the two.
- In-house batch testing, with unnamed external accredited laboratories status
- Verbatim from the Quality & Standards page, quoting Symprove's Lead Fermentation Scientist: "Symprove quality tests every batch within our in-house laboratory… Our results are periodically validated by external accredited laboratories." The external laboratories are not named, and validation is described as periodic rather than per batch, so there is no issuer and no register to query. There is no NSF mark, no USP mark, no Informed Sport and no Non-GMO Project verification.
- Which? Best Buy award status
- Displayed under a "Recognised for excellence" heading. A consumer-magazine review, not a certification, and recorded here so it is not mistaken for one.
- Any CFU count from the brand
- None exists. Two figures circulate in public and neither is Symprove's. The US importer MicroBio Health states "Each 70 ml cupful of Symprove delivers 10 billion bacteria to your gut" — 10 billion a shot. The independent 2025 King's College London trial (PMID 41126787) dosed at 4.08 x 10^8 CFU/mL across 70 mL a day, which is about 2.9 x 10^10 — 29 billion a shot. They differ by roughly threefold and the brand does not adjudicate between them.
- The per-strain split
- Explicitly refused on the label. The ingredient line ends "*Relative proportions will vary." The brand is stating in writing that the ratio between its four strains is not fixed batch to batch, so no per-strain quantity can be published and none can be inferred from a total.
- A per-designator human-trial enumeration
- No per-strain PubMed query was run in this pass. The randomised evidence recorded here is a single trial of the whole four-strain preparation — PMID 41126787, Mov Disord 2025, King's College London, registered NCT05146921 — and the four organism slots inherit it as a product-level result. That is not the same thing as four independent strain literatures, and no per-strain count is published.
- A federal label record
- None, verified on three queries. "Symprove" returns 0 hits; "Symprove live and active bacteria" returns 40 hits, none Symprove; "Sym prove" returns 40 hits, none Symprove. DSLD indexes US-marketed dietary supplement labels and this is a UK food supplement with no US storefront, so the absence is explained by scope rather than by evasion.
- A normal US retail route
- There is none. Symprove's own FAQ reads, verbatim: "We don't have overseas stockists at the moment so do not offer subscriptions outside of the UK. We do, however, ship one-off packs of Symprove to most countries." The shipping policy adds that international orders must be placed by phone or email rather than through checkout, and a US IP triggers a geo-modal reading "We currently do not sell in this region." The price published here is a US importer's, not the brand's.
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 disclosure here is genuinely good, and it is attached to a product that will not tell you how much of anything you are getting.
All four strains carry public NCIMB deposit numbers — L. rhamnosus NCIMB 30174, E. lactis NCIMB 30176, L. plantarum NCIMB 30173, L. acidophilus NCIMB 30175. Real accessions in a real culture collection, lookupable by anyone. That is stronger identification than almost anything else in this category, and it belongs at the top.
Now read the end of the same ingredient line.
“*Relative proportions will vary.”
The brand is stating in writing that the ratio between its four strains is not fixed batch to batch. Not undisclosed — unfixed. Any one of the four could be a token presence in the bottle you bought, and that is the label’s own position, not an inference from it.
And Symprove publishes no CFU count at all. The product page, the ingredients page, “Why it works” and “Quality & standards” were all read. The strongest wording anywhere is “billions of live bacteria”. Two numbers exist in public and neither is the brand’s: a US importer says 10 billion per 70 mL shot; the independent 2025 King’s College London trial of this product dosed at about 29 billion. Roughly threefold apart, and nobody reconciles them.
Three more things a buyer should have.
“Clinically proven to deliver 99.3% of bacteria straight to your gut” is footnoted, by the brand, to a SHIME in-vitro gut simulator. “94% feel the difference” is footnoted, by the brand, to a survey of 490 existing customers. Both footnotes are honest; both claims are stated in language the underlying method cannot support.
The product contains an Enterococcus. That genus includes clinically significant opportunistic pathogens. It is not a defect on its face, and it deserves an explicit safety conversation before any recommendation — especially for immunocompromised readers — rather than a line in a footnote.
And a detail worth ending on. Symprove’s own FAQ says the word probiotic is “an unauthorized health claim under UK and EU regulations and therefore prohibited for use”. At home it is a live and active bacteria supplement. In the US, importers sell the same bottles as a probiotic — at about $3.71 a day, the most expensive in its batch, through a channel the brand does not operate.