Our goal at Equip is to provide the cleanest products possible with transparency on sourcing and testing while not sacrificing taste. After ample thought, vetting, and testing, we decided to include natural flavors in many of our products. The primary driver behind this decision is taste, while still providing the same top-notch, real-food, clean standard as always.
Natural flavors have a bad reputation, as they’re often an easy way to hide all kinds of chemical junk and fillers—but that’s not always the case! We pay a premium to work with extremely high-quality suppliers whose natural flavors are truly natural, made from a variety of fruits, herbs, and spices with no synthetic ingredients, fillers, or additives.
Our suppliers extract natural flavors from fruit, herb, and spice sources using a process called distillation, which exposes the plant material to steam. This method releases natural compounds, such as vapors and essential oils that are full of flavor. That oil is collected and condensed, which becomes the ‘natural flavor’ that provides the rich, unique taste profiles in each of our products. We’re really proud of this!
Many people ask, ‘What exactly is the natural flavor in XYZ product?’ Or, ‘Why is this not labeled as natural vanilla flavor versus natural flavor?’ The short answer is that almost every natural flavor we use consists of vapors and oils from 10+ different herbs, spices, plants, and fruits. Our suppliers, flavor houses, being in the business of selling flavors, consider these blends to be proprietary intellectual property—otherwise, anyone could copy the flavors and put them out of business! Given the flavors are a proprietary combination of fruits, plants, and herbs (natural things), we vet these partners by getting a detailed breakdown of the manufacturing process to ensure that the flavors are truly made from real foods. All our products also undergo rigorous testing for pesticides, glyphosate, mold, heavy metals, and other harmful contaminants to ensure that no junk finds its way into the natural flavors or our broader formulas.
The supplement industry is riddled with lies and deception, so while others may label their flavors as ‘vanilla bean flavor’ or ‘strawberry flavor,’ we believe the more accurate and honest labeling is ‘natural flavor,’ recognizing that the ingredients are typically made up of 10+ different natural oils and vapors. Consider us highly skeptical if anyone else is claiming otherwise… We've talked to most suppliers out there.
We’re always striving to set a higher standard for clean and delicious, real-food supplements so we’ll never stop looking for the cleanest and most delicious ingredients available. For now, having vetted dozens of suppliers, we’re confident that we’ve found the cleanest and most delicious flavors available! Plus, our Prime Protein Chocolate and our Unflavored products do not contain any natural flavors for those who prefer not to consume them or to flavor the products themselves!
