Nammex Renews Call for Functional Fungi Label Accuracy and Transparency in Response to Misinformation Campaign
Gibsons, BC, Canada (January 28, 2025) – Nammex, the premier North American supplier of Certified Organic Functional Mushroom Extracts, has long advocated for accuracy and transparency in labeling and marketing fungi products. In light of a recent misleading marketing campaign, the Nammex management team feels compelled to renew that call.
“As happens more often than it should, those of us who have long been advocates for transparency in fungi product labeling and marketing are compelled to clarify the issue,” said Skye Chilton, CEO of Nammex. “It’s really very simple. The main point we have been making for decades is that functional fungi products should be accurately and properly identified in their entirety. To protect the integrity of this growing product category, consumers deserve the truth. Products that don’t contain mushrooms shouldn’t be hidden behind the term mushroom.”
Inconsistent use of fungal terminology, especially the term “mushroom,” is fueling the confusion. This is especially prevalent in product marketing, and a disservice to consumers. Information on the correct use of terminology is readily available, including on the Nammex website. A consumer survey of 10,000 people found overwhelmingly that shoppers know what a mushroom is and expect it to be the fruiting body when they buy a product marketed as mushroom.
“The North American Functional Mushroom Council marketing group with “mushroom” in its name and made up primarily of mycelium fermented grain producers, doesn’t even have the word "mycelium" on its website,” said Skye. “It does, however, have the word “mushroom” in its name and over 100 times on its website, which also features plenty of pictures of mushrooms. The implication is they represent products made from mushrooms, which they primarily do not.”
When mycelium is grown on a grain substrate, which is the most economical and common method of obtaining this fungal part in North America, the majority of the final product is the grain. This has been clearly demonstrated many times, including Nammex’s recent peer reviewed paper on chaga. It’s not “transformed” into something else as often claimed. AOAC method 996.11 for starch testing confirms and quantifies this grain presence, as mushrooms and mycelium themselves contain no starch. It’s an inexpensive test that most 3rd party labs can perform. The chemical profile is closer to the grain than the mushroom or mycelium. And yet the grain component goes unacknowledged in most mycelium fermented grain product labeling and marketing.
Nammex and other companies committed to transparency and label accuracy are not alone in this concern. The US Food & Drug Administration already states that “labeling should not suggest or imply that the food contains mushrooms” when it does not.
Another potential regulatory vulnerability is the marketing of mycelium fermented grain products with the claim “Made with US Grown Mushrooms” which Nammex views as misleading to consumers and against FDA guidelines. Actual US mushroom growers should be concerned about this deception.
“Full spectrum” is another term often used to obfuscate mycelium fermented grain. A full-spectrum preparation is a formulation intentionally designed to preserve the broad, representative chemical complexity of a specific, therapeutically relevant plant or fungal part, prioritizing the synergistic interactions of natural constituents over the isolation of single compounds. Achieving this requires extraction processes that retain the proportional profile of the original material, ensuring that the major and characteristic compound classes remain intact even if standardized to specific markers. Products where the mass or chemical profile is primarily composed of non-medicinal substrates, such as grain in mycelium fermented grain products, cannot be classified as full spectrum.
Some of the most important research being done right now is on development and validation of independent testing methods for fungi including the characterization of raw materials. Nammex is working with analytical labs and standards setting organizations to develop validated methods of analysis for identity, purity, and potency of fungal based ingredients.
“Consumers trust brands to deliver the benefits they pay for, and they deserve nothing less than absolute honesty in labeling,” Skye said. “True transparency is about ensuring that what’s on the label is exactly what’s in the bottle.”
Nammex filed a Citizen Petition requesting that the FDA take action to ensure dietary supplements and foods containing ingredients from fungi are properly labeled to identify the fungal part and list any included grain substrates. The petition made a strong case for FDA to correct ambiguity in the regulation and clarify that the requirement to list the “part” of ingredients that is applied to botanicals, along with the common or usual name, expressly applies to fungal ingredients.
About Nammex
Since 1989, Nammex has pioneered the cultivation of organic mushrooms and development of high-quality mushroom extracts to support consumer health and wellness. For over 30 years, Nammex has been a leader in advancing the scientific understanding of mushroom extracts and commercial use of scientifically validated analytical methods for quality control testing of fungal products. Nammex’s mushroom extracts and concentrates are produced under rigorous quality standards, including growing mushrooms naturally using organic practices, processing the mushrooms following cGMP standards, QC testing in qualified laboratories, and yearly audits of farm and factory. Nammex founder and President Jeff Chilton has deep, longstanding relationships with China’s top researchers and growers of medicinal mushrooms. https://www.nammex.com/
Trade Press Contact:
Suzanne Shelton - The Shelton Group
+1 847-922-5454
[email protected]