Botanical Extracts

Standardised plant extracts with documented actives and residual solvent limits.

0 botanicals · 0 currently in North America stock

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How to choose

Selecting the right botanicals

Specify all four variables, not just actives

Marker compound, extraction ratio, plant part and extraction method together define the product. Actives percentage alone is insufficient, because two extracts can share that figure and behave differently.

Confirm residual solvent limits

Where extraction uses organic solvents, residual solvent limits are a specification requirement rather than an optional detail. Request the values and the analytical method used to determine them.

Verify the regulatory position for your specific claim

Botanicals are frequently regulated differently from vitamins and minerals, and historical food use in one jurisdiction does not carry over to another. Establish the position for your market, use level and intended claim before commercialising.

Botanical extracts carry a specific verification problem that synthetic ingredients do not. Because the active fraction of a plant varies with growing conditions, harvest timing, plant part used and extraction method, two extracts with the same name and the same nominal actives percentage can behave quite differently. The specification that matters is therefore not simply the actives content. It is the standardised marker compound, the extraction ratio, the plant part, and the extraction method and solvent. A supplier who cannot state all four is not describing a product you can rely on. This category also carries the highest regulatory exposure. Many botanical ingredients have a long history of food use in some jurisdictions and none in others, and several have well-known safety considerations at high intake. Claims about botanical ingredients are frequently regulated differently from claims about vitamins and minerals, and the distinction matters enormously if you intend to make a claim on pack. Our position on this is consistent across the site: we do not publish a regulatory position we cannot cite. For botanicals specifically we will send you the documented reference for your market and use level rather than a summary that would need checking anyway.

Standardisation is a process question, not a certificate question

The marker compound percentage on a specification sheet tells you what was in that batch. It does not tell you whether the extraction was selective, whether the plant part was correct, or whether the extraction was efficient. Those are process questions, and they determine whether your next batch will behave like the sample that passed.

For botanical ingredients specifically, we recommend specifying the extraction ratio and the solvent system alongside the marker content, and asking what method is used to verify them. A supplier who cannot answer that is reselling material rather than guaranteeing a product, and the difference between those two things becomes obvious the first time a batch drifts.