Artemis International, a company specializing in nutraceutical berry extracts, responded to recent reports concerning suspected adulteration in berry supplements following peaked interest in elderberry when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
 
The company announced that it will be strengthening its partnership with the American Botanical Council’s Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) and botanical testing specialists Alkemist Labs in investigating suspicions of adulterated elderberry ingredients that are infiltrating the U.S. market both as raw ingredients, as well as into finished consumer products.
 
“It was just a matter of time,” Leslie Gallo, president of Artemis International, said. “With a global population of over 7 billion people, most of whom are looking for something they can take to help their immune system during COVID-19, the bad actors in the ingredient business, and some dishonest brands marketing elderberry products, were going to try to capitalize on the heightened awareness of elderberry.”
 
Gallo said that following an explosion of interest in elderberry when COVID-19 began, she found emails from companies that were mostly based in China, touting elderberry powders and extracts at prices too good to be pure elderberry, taking into account the costs of transporting elderberry from Europe to China, extraction, achieving a xx:1 ratio, and then shipping to the U.S. The company ordered these products in order to have them tested in partnership with Alkemist Labs.
 
Artemis’ preliminary testing on some of these extracts revealed non-elderberry compounds. Chromatograms show some of the adulteration ingredients included well-known black rice, while other “extracts” were not the reported level of active anthocyanins based on the USP method.
 
“It is disheartening that at a time when it is most important for people to be able to confidently purchase their elderberry products, they need to be concerned that they are purchasing elderberry,” Gallo said. “Brands need to take extra precautions when purchasing elderberry ingredients and send to respected third-party labs for validation. We have been notified of finished products that are questionable. Brands – check the products that have your name on them. Hint – the contents of an elderberry capsule should never be beige/white.”
 
Artemis cautions companies purchasing elderberry extracts to do their due diligence: GMP requires full ID/authentication of ingredients, one should not rely on vendor-supplied reports.
 
“Alkemist Labs has already reported on fraudulent certificates of authentication using its logo,” Gallo added. “Ingredients should be tested at reputable labs. Period. And if given a lab report from the vendor, call the lab named on the certificate of analysis to confirm the report has not been altered and reflects actual testing done.”