GNC Holdings Inc. employees will begin performing DNA barcoding on store products following an agreement reached with New York state officials over health concerns.
The Pittsburg-based health and nutrition retail chain conducted "rigorous tests" demonstrating that its products are correctly labeled and are safe for consumption following state probing, the company wrote in a statement, according to Bloomberg.
"The specific products called into question were tested by the manufacturers during and at the end of production," Wal-Mart spokesman Brian Nick told the site via e-mail.
"The results confirmed that the ingredients on the label were present and the products were not adulterated."
Wal-Mart, among other multinational corporations, received subpoenas from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office, asking company officials about origins of ingredients in supplements and the specifics of labels. Schneiderman was primarily concerned with investigating whether ingredients being used in products were synthetic or natural and where they were harvested and/or processed, Bloomberg also reports.
GNC, which supplies products to other chains such as Wal-Mart, has promised to more carefully test its supplements and abide by U.S. Food and Drug Administration manufacturing recommendations.
"Given the existence of chemically-similar natural or synthetic substitutes, the attorney general's office remains concerned that these alternate methodologies do not provide adequate assurances of the authenticity of herbal supplements," Schneiderman said in a news release, according to the Wall Street Journal.
GNC was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in Pittsburg.
