The proprietary blend loophole, in three minutes

If you have ever bought a supplement, you have almost certainly bought a proprietary blend. The supplement facts panel listed five or eight or twelve impressive-sounding ingredients followed by a single milligram weight for the entire group. The actual amount of any given ingredient: undisclosed.

This is the proprietary blend loophole. It is permitted under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994. It serves exactly one party: the manufacturer.

What the brand can do behind that line

Imagine a 1,000 mg “Energy & Focus Blend” that lists, in order, ginseng, rhodiola, ashwagandha, B-vitamins, and caffeine. By regulation, the ingredients must be listed in descending order by weight. But the brand can legally place 970 mg of cheap fillers (maltodextrin, rice flour) under any clever name and 30 mg total across all the expensive actives.

You will never know. The label is fully legal.

Why brands love it

• Cost. The actual research-backed actives (KSM-66 ashwagandha at 600 mg, for example) are expensive. Tiny doses of many ingredients look impressive on a label and cost almost nothing.
• Marketing. “Contains ginseng, rhodiola, and ashwagandha!” sounds powerful, even if the bottle contains 5 mg of each.
• Defensibility. A brand can legitimately claim to “contain” an ingredient with research backing, even if their dose is 1/100th of the dose used in that research.

The simple buying rule

If a supplement facts panel groups any active ingredients under a “blend” weight rather than listing milligrams per ingredient, do not buy it. There are exactly zero situations in which a reputable formulator needs to hide their dosing.

The PrimaGround supplement facts panels list every ingredient with its individual milligram weight. We could not legally call any of our products a “blend” without disclosing those weights. We are choosing not to.