We all remember the story of The Little Engine That Could. Used to teach children the values of optimism and hard work, the story chronicles the experience of a little blue engine who agrees to take on the challenge of pulling a long, heavy train over a mountain after larger, more capable trains refuse to do so. Bound and determined to succeed, the little engine repeats a mantra of “I think I can, I think I can,” and refuses to give up, even as the slope increases and her cadence slows.

Not to give away the ending for anyone over the age of 10 who hasn’t read this timeless classic, but the little engine’s perseverance pays off and she succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain. What had seemed like a challenge too daunting to take on became a rewarding experience that produced a new mantra of “I thought I could, I thought I could.” It’s a great lesson for kids, it’s a great lesson for adults, and it’s a great lesson for the dietary supplement industry.

For the past two years, the industry has been creating and perfecting the Supplement OWL. The Supplement OWL (Online Wellness Library), the dietary supplement product registry, is an industry-wide, self-regulatory initiative that will help create a rich and more complete picture of the marketplace for regulators, retailers, and other stakeholders. I like to draw from the lesson of The Little Engine That Could and consider the registry The Little OWL That Could … and can! The little OWL that can garner enhanced trust from industry stakeholders and strengthen regulation already in place. The little OWL that is, in fact, not so little, in that it carries the weight of the industry on its wings to provide interested audiences with information they seek—all by way of a collective voluntary commitment to self-regulation by responsible supplement manufacturers.

Comprised of two Tiers of information, the Supplement OWL is the direct result of individual companies, industry trade associations, and UL, working together to create a product registry that will help increase transparency and accountability in the marketplace. Quickly gaining momentum throughout the industry since its April 2017 launch, the Supplement OWL serves as a resource for identifying products, their ingredients and the companies that market them, and permits registry users to examine and evaluate labels and other product information.

The Supplement OWL is available to all supplement manufacturers—not just the big dogs. Participation in Tier 1 of the registry is completely free, and UL has developed four label upload options to suit the needs of each unique company. These options are: 1) the electronic transfer of labels from an existing IT system—automated; 2) conversion of labels already in the ODS Label Database—semi-automated (OWL has a few more data field options than ODS-DSLD); 3) manual data entry—entry of data into spreadsheet is not automated; once data is entered, submission can be automated via web upload; or 4) using a third-party upload service—not automated and is the same as manual upload, yet a third-party performs the data entry service for you for a small per-label fee. In fact, UL and Hamacher Resource Group recently announced their availability to help with this fourth option.

Admittedly, participation in the Supplement OWL will take some effort on behalf of the brand owner—but as that little blue engine taught us as kids, anything worth doing requires effort. One suggestion, if you’ve got cold feet, is to familiarize yourself with the process and start with just a few of your company’s labels. This ensures your company is represented in the registry when it’s presented before lawmakers or retailers or accessed by other interested parties. Then, once you’re comfortable, you can start the heavy lifting and upload the remainder of your product labels.

Having your labels in the registry tells regulators that you’re part of the responsible, mainstream marketplace and that you are willing to be transparent with your label information. Furthermore, I’ve heard from several companies that uploading product labels to the OWL has helped them improve existing processes and tighten-up loose ends on projects that have fallen by the wayside.

Full industry participation is the key to this registry’s success—the OWL must be satiated with labels so that regulators, retailers, and other audiences can truly benefit from it. For me, this goal is beyond “I think I can.” I know we can make the OWL a household name within the industry, and a valuable resource to stakeholders, including consumers. I know we can make it over the peak of the mountain; all it takes is a little optimism, hard work, and a commitment to self-regulatory improvements to the industry.