How to Read a Certificate of Analysis

Almost every hemp brand says its products are lab tested. Very few explain how to check, and a surprising number link to a document that does not actually correspond to the thing you bought.

A Certificate of Analysis — a COA — is a lab's report on a specific batch of product. Read properly it tells you what is in the package and what is not. Read carelessly it provides nothing but reassurance, which is exactly what a low-quality brand is counting on.

Here is how to read one, in the order that matters. This applies to our products and to anyone else's.

Step One: Match the Batch Number

Before you read a single result, find the batch or lot number on the report and check it against the number printed on your package.

If they do not match, stop. Everything below this point is irrelevant. A COA for a different batch tells you about a different production run — different raw material, different day, potentially different everything. Cannabinoid content varies between batches even at a careful facility, which is precisely why testing is done per batch rather than once per product.

This is the most common way COAs get misused. A brand tests one good batch, publishes that report, and leaves it up for two years while the product underneath changes. The report is real. It is just not about what you are holding.

Step Two: Check Who Did the Testing

Look for the laboratory's name, address, and accreditation — usually ISO/IEC 17025, which is the international standard for testing laboratory competence.

Two things you are checking for:

Is the lab independent? A report produced by the manufacturer's own equipment is a claim about itself. That is not worthless, but it is a fundamentally different kind of evidence from a third party with no stake in the outcome and an accreditation to protect.

Is the lab actually named? Reports with the lab's identity obscured, or a generic logo and no address, are not verifiable. You should be able to look the lab up.

Step Three: Read the Cannabinoid Panel

This is the section everyone looks at, usually the only one. It lists each cannabinoid detected and its concentration, typically both as a percentage and as milligrams per unit.

What to check:

• Does the total THC match the label? If the package says 100 mg and the COA says 62 mg, you are not getting what you paid for. Some variance is normal — analytical methods have tolerances, and most jurisdictions allow roughly ±10% — but a large gap is a real problem.
• Are the other cannabinoids what you expect? If you bought a 1:1 CBD-to-THC product, both numbers should be there and roughly equal.
• Is anything present that should not be? Unexpected cannabinoids on a product that claims to be a simple extract can indicate conversion chemistry the brand has not disclosed.

You will often see two THC numbers: THCA and delta-9 THC. THCA is the acidic precursor that converts to delta-9 when heated. "Total THC" is normally calculated as delta-9 plus roughly 0.877 times the THCA, because THCA loses mass during that conversion. If a report shows a low delta-9 figure but a high THCA figure, the total after heating is much higher than the delta-9 line alone suggests. Brands occasionally quote only the delta-9 number to make a product look more compliant than it is.

Step Four: Read the Panels Nobody Reads

This is where a COA earns its keep, and it is the section most people skip entirely. Potency tells you whether the product works. These tell you whether it is safe.

Pesticides

Hemp is a bioaccumulator — it draws contaminants out of soil efficiently, which makes it useful for remediating polluted land and risky as a consumable crop. A pesticide panel should list the compounds tested and show a pass for each.

Heavy metals

Same reasoning. Lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury are the standard four. These accumulate in the body over time, so "a small amount" is not as reassuring as it sounds for a product you take regularly.

Residual solvents

Extraction and conversion use solvents. This panel confirms they were removed. It matters most for concentrates and for any converted cannabinoid such as delta-8 — if you are buying those and the report has no solvent panel, that is a significant gap.

Microbials and mycotoxins

Yeast, mould, E. coli, salmonella, and the toxins some moulds produce. Particularly relevant for flower, which is not cooked before it reaches you.

A report covering potency alone is a partial report. Four contaminant panels plus potency is what a complete one looks like.

Step Five: Understand What the Numbers Mean

A few conventions that trip people up:

• ND means "not detected" — below the level the instrument can see. It does not mean mathematically zero.
• LOD and LOQ are the limit of detection and the limit of quantitation. LOD is the smallest amount the method can notice; LOQ is the smallest it can measure reliably. A result between the two is a maybe.
• <LOQ means something was detected but was too small to quantify precisely.
• Units matter. Percentages and mg/g and mg/unit are all in use, sometimes on the same page. Check which column you are reading before concluding anything.

Warning Signs

Things that should make you reconsider a purchase:

1. No COA available at all. In 2026 this is not an oversight.
2. A COA that will not match any batch number you can find.
3. Potency only, no contaminant panels.
4. An unnamed or unaccredited lab.
5. An image rather than a document — a screenshot or photo of a report, particularly a cropped one, is trivially edited. Reputable labs issue PDFs, many with a QR code or verification link back to the lab's own system.
6. Reluctance when you ask. A brand that treats a request for the current batch report as an inconvenience has told you something.

What This Looks Like on Our Side

We publish batch results and link them from the product pages where they exist, and you can find everything gathered on our lab results page. If you cannot locate the report for the specific batch you received, email us the batch number from your package and we will send it.

We are aware that publishing a guide teaching you to audit us is an unusual marketing decision. We think it is the correct one. Every claim on this site — potency, purity, compliance — is either verifiable or it is decoration, and a customer who checks is worth more than one who takes our word for it. The checks above work equally well on our competitors, and we are comfortable with that.