Carriers, flow agents and what they are for
Updated
The ingredients customers read as padding are frequently the ones making the product work, and explaining that is one of the more useful things a transparent brand can do.
Not filler
"Fillers" is a word customers use for anything they do not recognize. Most of those ingredients are functional, present at fractions of a percent, and removing them would produce a worse product rather than a purer one.
The three jobs
Flow agents coat particles and interrupt the cohesion that makes fine powders bridge and stick. Without them a fine blend fills inconsistently, which is a dosing problem.
Anticaking agents interfere with the moisture bridging that turns a powder into a solid mass in a tub.
Carriers dilute a very small component so it can be distributed evenly through a large one. Spreading a gram of something through a kilogram directly does not work; spreading it through a hundred grams of carrier first, then blending that in, does.
Why a carrier protects potency
This is the part that is not obvious. Proper blending can stabilize sensitive ingredients by ensuring they are dispersed evenly with protective agents or carriers, which helps maintain potency over shelf life.
So a carrier is not only a distribution aid. It is part of how a fragile active survives to the end of the tub, which means removing it to shorten the ingredient list can measurably reduce what the customer receives.
Declaring them
They appear in the "Other ingredients" line beneath the Supplement Facts panel, which is where customers look when they are suspicious.
The strongest position is to name them and say what each is for. A brand that explains that its silicon dioxide is there so every scoop is the same is making an argument its competitors cannot make while pretending they use nothing.