“Well, it sure isn’t beet root.”
For one of our Tuesday/Understanding topics, I thought it would be interesting to dig into a bit of real-world chemical detective work.
An importer and distributor of raw ingredients for nutritional supplements (vitamin pills, gummies, drink mixes, etc) brings botanical ingredients into the country in shipping containers and then provides these materials directly to the manufactures so they can make the supplements. Recently, one of their manufactures sent the material we provided to be scientifically identified — a routine quality test. The original supplier who sold the material to the importer claimed that the material was 100% Organic Beet Root Powder. However, the lab said it wasn’t. Understandably, the manufacture contacted the importer a little concerned. What exactly were they putting in their pills?
You’ve been hired by the importer to get to the bottom of the situation. It’s your job to figure out what happened and who is responsible.
Responses