Direct from the Director of Food Safety at our manufacturing facility: All Hammer Nutrition Products are made with natural flavors, and derived from non-allergenic chemical sources unless stated otherwise on the label. The chemicals are naturally occurring in natural foods. For example, a natural orange flavor may be actually derived from several different citrus fruits. The chemicals can be used from other foods to make the orange flavor, as long as the chemical does in fact naturally occur in an orange as well. The chemicals used to make up the flavors in Hammer Nutrition products are in accordance with the FDA definition for natural flavor found in 21 Code of Federal Regulations 101.22 (3)
(3) The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional. Natural flavors include the natural essence or extractives obtained from plants listed in 182.10, 182.20, 182.40, and 182.50 and part 184 of this chapter, and the substances listed in 172.510 of this chapter.
What this means is that the natural flavors we use:
1. Follow FDA guidelines and regulations
2. Are derived from the fruit itself
3. May be derived from another fruit or food source, as long as the chemical used in the other fruit/food source naturally occurs in the fruit whose flavor we're trying to replicate
4. Are derived from non-allergenic sources