Provenance & quality

The unglamorous part

Colostrum is a product of animal origin. Moving it across a border is a veterinary process, not a shipping formality. This page sets out what we check.

The raw material

What colostrum is

Colostrum is the first milk a cow produces after calving. It is compositionally different from the milk that follows — higher in protein, lower in lactose, and rich in immunoglobulin G.

Ours is collected at the first milking from grass-fed herds in New Zealand, pasteurised, and spray-dried into a powder standardised to at least 30 % IgG. At 2,000 mg of that powder per stick, each daily portion provides at least 600 mg of IgG.

That is a description of what is in the pouch. It is not a statement about what it does, and you will not find one of those anywhere on this site — see below.

Four checks before an order

  1. Approved country of origin. Colostrum may only enter Great Britain and the EU from countries on the relevant approved list. New Zealand is on both.
  2. Approved establishment. The specific plant must be individually approved and listed for export. We verify the establishment number against the published list.
  3. Certified consignment. Shipments travel with an official health certificate signed by the exporting country’s competent authority, are pre-notified, and are presented at a Border Control Post.
  4. Novel food status. Colostrum whose immunoglobulin fraction has been concentrated may require novel food authorisation. We ask for the full process flow and the IgG content of both the raw material and the finished powder.

Testing

Every batch

Each production batch is tested by an independent laboratory before release.

  • Microbiology
    Total viable count, Enterobacteriaceae, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli, yeasts and moulds
  • Heavy metals
    Lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic, against the limits in Regulation (EU) 2023/915
  • Identity & strength
    Confirmation that colostrum and IgG are present at the declared amounts
  • Allergens
    Confirmation of the allergen profile and of cross-contamination controls at the site
  • Records
    A certificate of analysis retained against the lot number printed on every pouch

If you have bought a pouch and want to see the certificate of analysis for that lot, write to us with the lot number and we will send it.

Our position on claims

We do not tell you
what this does

In the European Union and Great Britain, a food may only carry a health claim if that exact claim appears on the official register of authorised claims. It is a whitelist.

There are no authorised health claims for bovine colostrum. Applications were made. They were assessed. They were not granted. A great deal of marketing in this category proceeds as though that were not the case.

So our copy about colostrum is confined to what it is, where it comes from, how much is in a stick and how to take it. Where we do make a health claim, it belongs to one of the added vitamins or minerals, it uses the authorised wording exactly, and it is attributed to that nutrient rather than to the product.

If you find anything on this site, on our packaging or on our social media that you believe crosses that line, please tell us. We would rather hear it from you.