How to Qualify a Garlic Extract Supplier: A Scored Checklist

The Diagnostic Test

Run this before anything else.

Ask for: "Garlic extract powder, standardised to allicin 2%."

As set out in our standardisation guide, allicin is not present in intact garlic — it is generated by alliinase from alliin when the clove is disrupted, and it degrades within hours. So this specification cannot be met by any genuine dry extract.

This is the same technique as the impossible-menthol test on peppermint, and on garlic it works even more cleanly because the chemistry is unambiguous.

Three Disqualifying Red Flags

1. Quotes allicin as an as-is content without comment. See above.
2. Reports allicin yield without stating the assay conditions. Yield depends on buffer, pH, temperature and time; a figure without conditions is not comparable and not verifiable.
3. Cannot report alliinase activity on a yield grade. The enzyme is half the system, and heat-killed alliinase is the single most common garlic quality failure — invisible to any content assay.

The Scoring Framework

Weighted to 100 points, with chemistry comprehension and yield integrity carrying 45 between them.

1. Chemistry Comprehension — 20 points

The last row is a strong positive signal. A supplier who volunteers that an uncoated format will under-deliver against a yield figure is protecting your claim rather than closing a sale.

2. Yield and Enzyme Integrity — 25 points

The three-batch yield comparison is the most revealing request here. Consistent yield across batches indicates gentle, controlled drying; yield that wanders indicates a process run to throughput — and you will inherit that variability.

3. Assay and Composition — 20 points

4. Grade Capability — 15 points

5. Contaminants, Storage and Terms — 20 points

Interpreting the Score

Apply a floor across sections 1 and 2: below 25 of 45, decline for any yield-based product. Those sections cover the two things that actually determine whether garlic works: does the supplier understand the chemistry, and can they demonstrate the enzyme survived.

The Sample Stage

• Smell it. Genuinely useful here. A conventional garlic extract should smell of garlic — that odour is the chemistry. Flat, odourless material claiming to be a conventional extract has either been aggressively deodorised or has lost its chemistry.
• Check the CoA states yield conditions. Absent on the sample, absent on bulk.
• Ask for a conventional and an aged grade side by side. The difference in odour and behaviour is immediately instructive, and a supplier who can send both is running two real processes.
• Ask them to describe their drying temperature control. A manufacturer can; a trader cannot.
• Did they ask about your format? Without knowing whether you can enteric-coat, no supplier can advise on grade — so not asking means not advising.

First-Order Protocol

1. Nominate an independent laboratory — Eurofins, SGS or Intertek. Specify alliin and allicin yield, and instruct the laboratory to use the supplier's stated yield conditions. Mismatched conditions produce an incomparable number and a pointless dispute.
2. Ask for alliinase activity independently on a yield grade.
3. Do not commission "allicin content" — it will return a near-zero or artefactual figure and tell you nothing.
4. Retain a sealed, dated sample stored cool; re-test it on yield at twelve months to learn how the material behaves in your storage.
5. Re-verify at batch three, then annually, and on any change of manufacturing site or drying process.

SV Botanica declares the grade chemistry on every garlic batch, assays alliin by HPLC, determines allicin yield under stated conditions with alliinase activity reported, and supplies SAC-standardised aged grades. Buyer-nominated third-party pre-shipment testing is welcome. See the product page, the buyer's guide, or adulteration and authenticity.