What a Third Party Lab Actually Tests For
A certificate of analysis is one page, and most of it is a table of things that were not found. That reads as reassuring until you ask which things the lab went looking for. Our grass fed liver gummies go out under a panel that answers four separate questions, and those questions are not one question asked four times.
Identity, potency, contamination, microbes
Identity asks the dullest and most important thing: is this actually what the label claims. For a desiccated liver ingredient that means species confirmation, because bovine material from the wrong species is cheaper and is not interchangeable on a label. A lab runs a protein or DNA based assay and reports a match or a failure. There is no partial credit, and a failure sends the lot back.
Potency is the second question, and it's about quantity. Liver is bought for nutrients it carries naturally, among them vitamin A, vitamin B12 and heme iron, and those move with the animal, the pasture and the season. A lot drawn in autumn can assay higher than one drawn in spring. We set a floor and reject below it rather than averaging the year and hoping the mix lands somewhere acceptable.
Contamination is the third, and in practice it means heavy metals. Lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury each come back with a result, usually in parts per million. The sensible question isn't whether any was detected, since trace amounts turn up in almost anything grown in soil. It's whether the figure clears the limit that applies where you live, and California's threshold is tighter than the federal one.
Microbes are the fourth. A dry gummy is a poor home for bacteria, but what goes into it is agricultural material, so the panel includes a plate count, a yeast and mold count, and a screen for Salmonella and E. coli. Two of those pass or fail outright. The rest have thresholds, and a result just under a threshold is a result we watch.
What a certificate does not tell you
A COA describes one lot. It says nothing about the lot before it or the one shipping next quarter, and it does not mean the formula does anything in particular. It's a snapshot from a single day.
Sampling is the other soft spot. A lab tests what you hand it. If a brand pulls one jar off the top of a pallet once a year, the report is real and nearly meaningless. We sample after filling, from the lot, which costs more per unit and removes any temptation to pick the best jar in the building.
Turnaround is worth asking about as well. A full panel takes days, longer when a culture has to grow, and that wait is built into our release schedule instead of being treated as an exception. A brand that ships the same week it fills is either testing afterwards or not testing every lot, and neither is what the phrase third party is meant to imply.
There's also a gap between tested and certified. Certified usually points at a process or a facility standard, an audit of how things are made. Tested points at a physical sample and a machine. You want both, and you should be wary of a label that uses the words as though they were synonyms. They aren't, and the difference matters when something goes wrong.
Why we publish the boring part
Each 60 count bottle is 30 days at 2 gummies a day, and every lot behind those bottles has a certificate with a lot number you can match to the print on the base. Ask us for it and we'll send the page. Almost nobody does, which is fine. Publishing isn't about you reading it, it's about us being unable to quietly skip a step when a run is late and the warehouse is waiting.
The same rule applies across the rest of the range. Our zinc capsules ship 120 capsules to a bottle, which is 60 days at 2 capsules a day, and each lot gets the same four part panel. One testing protocol for four products is easier to audit than four different ones, and it means a question about any bottle has the same answer.
We'd rather show four assays we can explain in plain language than print a badge nobody defines. If a claim on a bottle can't survive a follow up question, it probably shouldn't be on the bottle.
Frequently asked questions
What is a certificate of analysis?Show answerHide answer
A document from a testing lab reporting what it found in a specific batch.
Does testing cover everything?Show answerHide answer
No. A panel tests for what it is designed to test. Ask which assays were run before assuming coverage.
Is tested the same as certified?Show answerHide answer
No. Tested means a lab ran assays. Certified usually refers to a process or facility standard.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
