"Proprietary blend": why it usually hides something

A label reads: “Proprietary Herbal Blend, 850 mg: Ashwagandha, Safed Musli, Shilajit, Kaunch Beej, Gokshura, Shatavari, Akarkara, Vidarikand.”

Eight impressive ingredients and one number. The customer reads eight herbs at 850 mg. What they are actually told is that the eight herbs add up to 850 mg, in proportions nobody will disclose.

It could be 800 mg of one cheap herb and 50 mg spread across the other seven. Nothing on that label rules it out, and in practice that is frequently what it is.

We manufacture, so we have been asked to build these. This is what they are for.

The stated reason, and why it does not hold

The claim: disclosing exact ratios would let competitors copy the formula.

Why it does not hold up:

The ingredients are already listed. Anyone can see what is in it.

Ratios are not hard to work out for anyone who wants to. A competitor can send the product to a laboratory and have the actives quantified. The only person the blend conceals the ratios from is the customer, who will not be commissioning an analysis.

And for Ayurvedic formulations the argument is particularly thin, because the classical texts are public. Charaka Samhita, Sushruta Samhita, the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia, Bhaishajya Ratnavali, all printed, all available. A combination drawn from them is not a trade secret.

Genuinely proprietary intellectual property exists, a patented extraction method, a specific delivery technology, a clinically studied branded extract. Those are protected by patents and trademarks, and the companies that hold them publish their dosages, because the dosage is what the research supports and therefore what they are selling.

Which is the tell: the companies with something genuinely worth protecting disclose their amounts. The ones hiding amounts generally have nothing to protect.

What is actually being concealed

Three things, in order of how often we see them.

1. Fairy dusting

The practice: include an expensive, marketable ingredient in an amount far below any studied dose, so it can appear on the label.

How it works commercially: shilajit, a branded ashwagandha extract, or saffron on the front of the pack sells the product. At 5 mg of a herb whose studied dose is 300 mg, the cost is negligible and the label benefit is full.

The customer pays for the name and receives a trace.

A blend makes this invisible. With quantities declared, a 5 mg inclusion is visible and embarrassing. Inside a blend, it is just one of eight names.

2. Cheap filler carrying the weight

The reverse of the same trick: the bulk of the blend is the cheapest ingredient, and the expensive ones ride on top.

An 850 mg “herbal blend” where 700 mg is a low-cost base is a very different product from one where the expensive actives carry real weight, and the label is identical.

3. Underdosing against the cited research

The one with the most commercial consequence.

A product’s marketing cites research, “clinically studied ashwagandha”, “backed by trials”, and the research used a specific dose. If the actual inclusion is a fraction of that dose, the research does not apply to the product.

A declared quantity makes this checkable. A blend makes it unverifiable.

And in our experience this is the most common reason a client asks for a blend: not to protect a formula, but to cite a study at a price point that does not support the studied dose.

And in India, it is a compliance problem too

Worth stating because many brands do not realise.

Indian labelling requirements call for declaration of ingredient quantities. A blend that lists eight herbs against a single total, with no individual amounts, does not satisfy that, regardless of whether it is framed as proprietary.

So “proprietary blend” is not a recognised exemption from disclosure. It is a formatting choice that happens to omit required information, and it is the kind of thing that gets flagged in a marketplace compliance review or an inspection.

Which means a brand using one is carrying a regulatory exposure to conceal a formulation weakness. That is a poor trade in both directions.

How to read a blend when you meet one

If you are evaluating a product with one:

1. Assume the order is meaningful. Ingredients should be listed in descending order of quantity. So the first ingredient is most of the blend, and the last ones may be present in trace amounts. That ordering is the one piece of real information a blend gives you.

2. Work out the arithmetic ceiling. If the blend is 850 mg across eight ingredients, then no single ingredient can exceed 850 mg, and the average is about 106 mg. If the marketing cites a study using 600 mg of one of them, that dose cannot be present alongside meaningful amounts of the other seven.

This simple check disposes of a lot of claims.

3. Count the ingredients. A long list in a small total is a strong signal of dusting. Eight herbs in 500 mg means the average is 62 mg, below the studied dose for most of them.

4. Look at where the expensive ones sit in the order. Shilajit or a branded extract listed last is almost certainly a trace.

5. Check whether anything is declared separately. Some labels declare the one ingredient they actually dosed properly outside the blend, and bury the rest inside it. That is informative.

6. Ask the brand. Email and ask for the quantity of a specific ingredient. A brand that answers is worth considering. One that cites proprietary protection has told you the answer anyway.

What a good label looks like instead

Each capsule contains:
Ashwagandha root extract (Withania somnifera)    300 mg
  standardised to 5% withanolides
Safed Musli root extract (Chlorophytum borivilianum)  150 mg
Gokshura fruit extract (Tribulus terrestris)     100 mg
  standardised to 40% saponins
Shilajit extract (purified)                       100 mg
  standardised to 50% fulvic acid
Zinc (as zinc bisglycinate)                        10 mg
Excipients                                            q.s.

Every number checkable. Fewer ingredients, each at a quantity that means something, with markers where they exist.

Fewer ingredients is usually a better product, which runs against the instinct that more is better. Four herbs at real doses beats twelve at token amounts, every time, but twelve names look more impressive on a shelf, which is why the category drifts the wrong way.

The honest counterargument

To be fair, there is one legitimate case, and it is narrow.

Classical formulations, Chyawanprash, Triphala Churna, Dashamularishta, have ratios specified in the classical texts, and the convention is to name the formulation. Here the “secret” argument is irrelevant because the ratios are published and anyone can look them up.

For a classical formulation, naming it and stating that it is prepared per the relevant text is reasonable practice. That is not the same thing as a modern eight-herb blend with an undisclosed split.

And flavour systems genuinely are proprietary, and it is normal not to break them down. But nobody buys a supplement for its flavour system.

For brand owners

Three practical points.

A disclosed label is a competitive advantage in this category, precisely because most competitors do not have one. In a shelf full of blends, a label with real numbers and standardisations is differentiated, and it is the only kind of label that supports a serious claim.

It also protects you. If you cite research, a declared dose matching that research is your defence. A blend is not.

And it changes what you can sell to. Practitioners, clinics, export buyers and the informed consumer segment all ask what is in it. A blend closes those channels.

What it costs you: you cannot cite an impressive ingredient you have not actually dosed. That is the whole saving, and it is not a saving worth having.

Our own position

We get asked for blends and we will say why we decline.

We will not formulate a blend designed to conceal that an ingredient is below its studied dose while the marketing cites that study. That is the specific request, and it makes the product legally fragile and the claim untrue.

We will build a shorter formula at real doses at any price point a client wants, because the honest way to hit a lower price is fewer ingredients at proper amounts, not more ingredients at token ones.

We state quantities and standardisations on every quotation and every label, which also means a client can compare us properly to anyone else. We would rather compete on that than on a number nobody can check.

The short version

1. A blend with one total and no individual amounts conceals the split, and the split is where the product’s quality lives.
2. The trade-secret argument does not hold, ingredients are already listed, ratios can be analysed, and Ayurvedic classical texts are public.
3. Companies with genuinely protected IP publish their doses, because the dose is what the research supports.
4. What is concealed: fairy dusting of expensive ingredients, cheap filler carrying the weight, and underdosing against cited research.
5. In India it is also a compliance problem, quantities must be declared, and “proprietary” is not an exemption.
6. Use the arithmetic ceiling. Blend total ÷ number of ingredients gives you the average. It disposes of most claims.
7. Descending order is real information, the expensive ingredient listed last is a trace.
8. Ask the brand for one ingredient’s quantity. Refusal is the answer.
9. Fewer ingredients at real doses beats more at token amounts.
10. Classical formulations are the legitimate exception, their ratios are published.

More detail: supplement label compliance in India. Related: how to read a certificate of analysis and how to spot a fake protein tub.