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1. Independent lab
Testing is performed by a named, genuinely third-party laboratory — not the supplier's own lab, and not a lab the supplier recommends.
How we vet
The Standard
Our credibility rests on one thing: you should be able to check our work. So our rating criteria are public, factual, and applied the same way to every vendor. We don't publish opinions or “best of” lists — a vendor either meets a criterion, with evidence, or it doesn't.
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2. Batch-specific Certificate of Analysis (COA)
A COA exists for the actual production lot — public, downloadable, and reasonably recent — not a generic or one-time sample.
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3. Lot-matchable
The lot number on the product matches the lot number on the report, and the report can be verified at the issuing laboratory.
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4. Identity & purity
Identity is confirmed by mass spectrometry and purity is quantified by HPLC, with the results reported.
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5. Verifiable presence
A real, checkable Canadian presence — contact details and shipping reality, not a paper address.
The badge tiers
- Verified third-party tested — meets the criteria above, with evidence we could check.
- Self-reported only — provides documentation, but key elements couldn't be independently verified.
- No verifiable COA found — we could not locate a verifiable third-party report.
How we assess
We review what a vendor publishes, attempt to verify reports at the issuing lab, and record what we can and cannot confirm. Assessments are a point in time and are updated as information changes.
Funding and ratings
Money can fund testing or verification — it can never buy, or improve, a rating.
Think we got it wrong?
A vendor that believes an assessment is inaccurate can contact us with supporting evidence and we'll review it. We report facts about testing and documentation; we don't allege wrongdoing.
We report what vendors and labs make publicly available and, where possible, whether it can be independently verified. We can't guarantee documents we didn't produce, and a passing report is not a guarantee of safety.