The quality test · Part two

Your label says 5 grams.Is that what’s in there?

We measured thirteen supplements against the amounts printed on their own labels. Three were ours. Ten weren’t.

All three Ora products came in at or above every amount they declare.

Six of the ten other products came in below their label on at least one declared amount. One of them contained an eighth of the vitamin B12 it promised.

And these aren’t small brands you’ve never heard of. They’re established supplement brands you’d recognize, bought the way any customer would buy them.

See the results

3 Ora products

Ora met its label claim on all 3

Creatine 116%, protein 104%, probiotic met its declared count

So Lean & So Clean Muscle Memory Trust Your Gut

10 comparison products

6 of 10 didn’t meet their label claim

Three declared amounts came back below 70% of the label

Below on at least one amount At or above on every amount

*Each measured amount was compared against the claim on that product’s own label, or the specification on its own certificate. Probiotics were measured against the live count each product declares, in the unit that product declares it in. Every declared vitamin and mineral we measured is listed in section 04.

A supplement bottle with a blank label and a question mark

01 · The claim

A label is a promise, not a measurement.

When you buy a supplement you’re trusting a number. Five grams of creatine. Twenty-three grams of protein. It’s printed before the product is made and it applies to every tub in the batch.

A number on a label and a number from a laboratory are two different things. Usually they agree. Nobody outside the company finds out either way unless somebody goes and measures it.

So we measured it.

  • Part two of the quality testPart one looked for what shouldn’t be in these thirteen products. This part checks what should be, and whether it’s there in the amount promised.
Read part one: microplastics

02 · Why protein is harder

Protein is trickier to verify than it looks.

Same reading, two different tubs

Tub 1

Protein

Nitrogen reads Same reading

Tub 2

Protein Other nitrogen sources

Nitrogen reads Same reading

A nitrogen-based test can produce the same apparent protein result for both. Illustration only. This study did not test products for non-protein nitrogen or amino spiking.

Protein usually isn’t measured directly. Labs often estimate it by measuring nitrogen, then calculating how much protein that nitrogen represents.

That works well when the nitrogen is actually coming from protein.

But some non-protein ingredients contain nitrogen too. That means two products can return the same apparent protein reading, even if one contains less true protein.

Unfortunately, this loophole has been exploited. Adding cheap, nitrogen-rich amino acids can make a basic protein test read higher than the amount of true protein in the product. That practice is known as amino spiking.

That’s why the test method matters, not just the number it produces.

So we pay a third party to verify ours

So Lean & So Clean is certified by Informed Protein, an independent program from LGC.

It verifies protein content against the label, screens for amino spiking and other adulterants, and audits the manufacturing facility.

Because when a label says 23 grams of protein, we think there should be more behind that number than our word for it.

Learn more about nitrogen spiking

03 · What we tested

Thirteen products, one lab, one run.

The same thirteen finished products from the microplastics testing: three of ours and ten bought at retail, across protein, creatine, probiotics, and greens and all-in-one powders.

Protein was measured by AOAC method. Creatine, amino acids and vitamins by HPLC. Minerals and heavy metals by ICP. Each measured value was compared against the claim stated on that product’s own label, or the specification printed on its own certificate.

3 Ora products

  • So Lean & So Clean

    So Lean & So Clean
    Protein

  • Muscle Memory

    Muscle Memory
    Creatine

  • Trust Your Gut

    Trust Your Gut
    Probiotic

10 products from other supplement brands

Protein

  • Protein A

  • Protein B

Creatine

  • Creatine C

  • Creatine D

Probiotic

  • Probiotic E

  • Probiotic F

Greens and all-in-one

  • Greens G

  • Greens H

  • Greens I

  • Multi J

  • 13 finished products
  • 1 laboratory, one requisition
  • 1 lot of each, no replicates

Worth knowing

Ora commissioned and paid for this testing and chose which products to compare against. The laboratory tested one lot of each with no repeats, so these results describe thirteen tubs, not thirteen companies. Comparison products are identified by category and letter.

04 · Results

What we found

By category

Six of the ten other products came in below their label on at least one declared amount. All three Ora products came in at or above every amount they declare.

  • Ora: So Lean & So Clean At or above label
    24g measured, 23g declared 104%
  • Protein A Below label
    20g measured, 21g declared 95%
  • Protein B Below label
    19g measured, 20g declared 95%
  • Ora: Muscle Memory At or above label
    5.8g measured, 5g declared 116%
  • Creatine C Below label
    4.3g measured, 5g declared 86%
  • Creatine D At or above label
    5.1g measured, 5g declared 102%
  • Ora: Trust Your Gut Met declared count
    Live count measured against its own label Met
  • Probiotic E Met declared count
    Live count measured against its own label Met
  • Probiotic F Met declared count
    Live count measured against its own label Met
  • Greens G Below label
    Potassium 255 of 300 mg 85%
  • Greens H At or above label
    Matched its label on every nutrient measured Match
  • Greens I Below label
    Iron 0.41 of 0.6 mg 68%
  • Multi J Below label
    Vitamin B12Magnesium
    B12 25 of 200 mcg. Magnesium 66 of 100 mg. Sodium went the other way: 11 against 5 mg. 12.5%66%
OraComparison productBelow its own label100% of the amount on its own label

Tap a category to filter. Bars show each result as a share of that product’s own label. Where a product came in under on more than one nutrient, each gets its own bar. Probiotics are counted in different units, so they have no bar.

Three ways a label can be off

Less than the label says

12.5%of the vitamin B12 on Multi J’s label

Multi J declares 200 micrograms of vitamin B12. The lab measured 25. That’s an eighth of the label.

That matters because people use the label to decide what they’re actually getting. If you’re choosing a supplement specifically for a nutrient, the number on the panel is part of the reason you bought it.

Not every difference is equally meaningful. A result at 85% of claim may be much closer to what testing variation can produce. A B12 result at 12.5% is a very different story.

If you’re paying for a stated amount, you should be able to trust that it’s actually there.

More than the label says

11 mgof sodium measured in Multi J, against 5 mg on its label

One result went the other way. A product declaring 5 milligrams of sodium measured 11.

In this case, the absolute amount is still small. But the principle matters.

Some people actively monitor nutrients like sodium because of their diet, health goals, or advice from a healthcare professional. If the label understates what’s in the product, it makes that harder.

The point isn’t that 11 milligrams of sodium is dangerous. It’s that the label should tell you what’s actually in the tub.

Not on the label at all

7nutrients measured in Greens I that its Supplement Facts panel doesn’t list
  • Chromium
  • Folate
  • Vitamin A
  • Vitamin C
  • Zinc
  • B12
  • B6

Chromium. Folate. Vitamin A. Vitamin C. Zinc. B12. B6.

These aren’t contaminants. Most are likely present because they come along with ingredients already used in the formula.

But if a nutrient isn’t listed, the customer can’t factor it into their own decisions.

That matters for people who are tracking certain vitamins or minerals, trying to avoid doubling up across multiple supplements, or following guidance from a healthcare professional.

You can’t make an informed choice about a number you were never shown.

Plant protein under the microscope
Plant protein under the microscope

05 · Why we bother

Quality you can’t check is just a claim.

Choosing the right ingredients matters. So does how much of them makes it into the finished tub, and whether anyone has checked.

Every Ora lot that’s on sale right now has its certificate published under its batch number, so anyone can look up the tub in their own kitchen. It costs money, it slows things down, and almost nobody asks us for it.

We do it because quality should be something you can verify, not something you’re asked to believe.

Man drinking a green smoothie from a clear glass against a blue sky

06 · One question worth asking

Ask your own brand.

Whatever you take, wherever you buy it: email the company and ask for the certificate of analysis for your batch. The batch number is printed on the pack.

Then look at what it reports. A certificate that measures the active ingredient against the claim is answering a different question from one that only looks for what shouldn’t be there. Both matter. They’re not the same thing.

You can ask us the same thing, so we’ve gone first.

See our certificates

07 · Questions

Fair questions

Something else? Email info@ora.organic and a real person will get back to you.

Are results like 12.5% or 86% of the declared amount allowed?

For vitamins and minerals, FDA’s labelling rules are specific. If a nutrient is added to a product, the amount in it is expected to be at least 100% of what the label declares. If it occurs naturally in an ingredient, at least 80%. For sodium, no more than 120%.

FDA checks that against a composite of 12 samples taken from a lot. We tested one sample of one lot, so we can’t say whether any product meets those rules, and we’re not saying any product doesn’t. What we can tell you is what that one sample measured against its own label.

Why does Ora’s creatine measure above its claim?

We formulate Muscle Memory to hit the 5 grams on its label, and the lot we tested measured 5.8 grams, 116% of the claim.

How did you choose the comparison products?

They’re the same ten products as part one of the quality test, the microplastics testing: two proteins, two creatines, two probiotics and four greens and all-in-one powders, from established supplement brands you’d recognize. We bought them at retail, the way any customer would.

We’re keeping the brands anonymous because this wasn’t designed to be a takedown. We wanted to see what the same test finds across products like ours.

Why aren’t the probiotics on a chart?

Because a probiotic isn’t measured in grams or milligrams. Each one declares a live count, and they don’t all declare it in the same unit, so each was measured against the count on its own label, in the unit that label uses.

A bar would put different units on one axis. So the chart gives each probiotic’s result in words instead: all three, ours included, met the live count on their labels.

Why should I trust a test you paid for?

Don’t take our word for it. Look at the method and the results.

Ora commissioned and paid for the testing and chose the products tested. All 13 were submitted together to an accredited third-party laboratory under one requisition, and every measured value was compared against that product’s own label. The method and every result are on this page so you can judge them for yourself.

And four of the ten other products met their label on every amount we measured. If we had gone looking for products we expected to fail, we wouldn’t be publishing a test where that happened.

Testing by an independent ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited laboratory in California. Requisition 113R1449, samples received 21 May 2026, certificates issued 8 and 9 June 2026. One lot of each product, n = 1, no replicates. Protein by AOAC method; creatine, amino acids and vitamins by HPLC; minerals and heavy metals by ICP; pesticides to USP 561; microbiology to USP 2021 and 2022; microplastics by µFTIR. Measured values compared against the claim stated on each product’s label or the specification printed on its certificate. Results describe the units tested and don’t establish average performance across production lots. Ora commissioned and paid for the testing and selected the comparison products.