Botanical adulteration is a growing challenge in the herbs and botanicals market and is likely to remain an ongoing issue for supplement brands and manufacturers. The American Botanical Council’s 2023 study1 on botanical forensics provides an in-depth look at some of the common ways fraudsters attempt to circumvent ingredient identification testing. Fraudulent manufacturers are using new adulterants and inert materials to fool testing methods like genetic testing and spectrophotometry; as such, there is now an arms race between scientists and fraudsters as each competes to outsmart the other. The American Botanical Council concludes that multiple analytical testing methods are needed to combat adulteration and maintain ingredient purity.

Reference:

1 Gafner S et al. “Botanical ingredient forensics: Detection of attempts to deceive commonly used analytical methods for authenticating herbal dietary and food ingredients and supplements.” Journal of Natural Products, vol. 86 no. 2 (2023): 460-472.

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