Batch and lot
Two codes arrived with this product. Neither is a test result, and the page says so more than once on purpose.
The lot SLI-26/SL-7735 and the certificate reference SLI-7735-26-SL appear in the written pack as draft label references. They are placeholders in artwork. No certificate of analysis, laboratory report or test result of any kind was supplied to this site.
That matters more here than on most products. For a probiotic the potency test is the colony-forming count — which is precisely the figure missing from this label. A real certificate of analysis would answer the largest open question on this entire site.
The two codes, and what they are
Read this section twice if you are about to quote either code to anybody.
The written pack supplied with this product carries a lot code, SLI-26/SL-7735, and a certificate-of-analysis reference, SLI-7735-26-SL. Both are described in that pack as draft label references.
A draft label reference is not laboratory proof. It is a string of characters placed in artwork so that a label layout has something in the field where a lot code will eventually go. It does not point at a tested batch, and it does not demonstrate that a batch was tested.
- Lot SLI-26/SL-7735
- A draft label reference from the written pack. Not a batch this site has seen, tested or matched to a bottle.
- CoA SLI-7735-26-SL
- A draft reference to a certificate that was not supplied. There is no document behind this string on this site.
- Expiry date
- Not printed in any supplied image. Not on the front panel, not on the side panel, and not in any of the marketing graphics.
- What is on your bottle
- Whatever is printed on it, which may be neither of the codes above. The bottle in your hand is the authority, not this page.
So the codes are published here for one reason only: so that a reader who finds them elsewhere, on a listing or in a forum, knows what they are and what they are not.
What a certificate of analysis tests
Four families of test, and the second one is where this product’s whole argument sits.
A certificate of analysis is a laboratory’s report on a specific batch. It names the batch, the methods used and the results against stated limits. Broadly it covers four things.
Identity
That the material is what the label calls it. For a botanical that means the right species and the right plant part — here, Cichorium intybus, root.
Is it the right thing?
Potency
How much of the active is present, against what the panel declares. For an inulin row that is a milligram figure. For a probiotic it is not.
How much is in it?
Heavy metals
Lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury, against stated limits. This is a contamination test rather than a quality one.
What else is in it?
Microbials
Unwanted organisms — yeast, mould, coliforms, salmonella. On a product that deliberately contains live organisms this test has to distinguish the wanted from the unwanted.
What is growing in it?
None of those four was supplied for this product in any form. There is no identity result for the chicory, no potency result for anything, no heavy-metal screen and no microbial report.
That is not an accusation. A certificate may well exist at the manufacturer; this site simply has not been given one and will not describe a document it has not read.
For a probiotic, the potency test is the count
This is the sentence that makes the page worth reading rather than skipping.
On an ordinary ingredient, a potency assay answers a question the label has already answered: the panel says 211 mg of chicory inulin, and the test says whether 211 mg is there. Useful, confirmatory, unexciting.
On a live organism it is different, because potency for a probiotic is measured in colony-forming units — the count of viable organisms. That is the number NIH’s Office of Dietary Supplements describes as the unit for a probiotic, and it advises choosing products that state CFU at the end of shelf life rather than at manufacture.
This label declares the blend as 36 mg by weight. US rules require the total weight of microorganisms rather than a viable count, so the panel is doing exactly what the law asks — and the figure that describes a probiotic is therefore absent by design.
So a certificate here is not a formality
On most supplements a certificate of analysis confirms a number that is already printed. On this one it would supply a number that is not printed anywhere.
A CoA carrying a colony-forming count for lot SLI-26/SL-7735 would answer the single biggest open question on this website: how many live organisms are in a capsule, and how many are left at the end of shelf life.
It would also make the cold-chain question answerable rather than merely askable, because a loss in transit could finally be expressed as a proportion of something.
What a certificate would and would not settle
It is the most useful document nobody has produced. It is still not a clinical trial.
| Open question | Would a CoA settle it? |
|---|---|
| How many live organisms are in a capsule | Yes, if it reports a colony-forming count for the lot |
| How many are left at the end of shelf life | Yes, if the count is stated at end of shelf life rather than at manufacture |
| Which strains the three species are | Possibly. A certificate that identifies organisms to strain level would; one that names species only would not |
| Whether 211 mg of inulin is really there | Yes, on identity and potency for that row |
| Whether the capsule contains heavy metals above limits | Yes, that is a standard panel |
| Whether the product does anything for you | No. A certificate describes contents, not effects. That is a question for the dose arithmetic and for the research behind it |
| What happened to the bottle in the post | No. A certificate describes a batch at the laboratory, not a parcel on your doorstep |
Scroll this table sideways →
The last two rows are the limit of the document and worth keeping in view. A certificate of analysis is a statement about what went into a bottle at a point in time. It is not evidence of a benefit and it never has been.
How to match your order to a batch
Four steps, and none of them can be done from this website.
Read the code off the bottle
It is normally stamped or printed on the base, the shoulder or the side panel. Write down exactly what is printed, including any prefix and any slash.
Have your order ID with it
From the order email. A lot code identifies a batch; an order ID identifies your purchase. A question carrying both is answerable in one call.
Phone the order desk
Call +1 (302) 200-3480 — orders, tracking, changes, refunds, monday to friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm eastern time. The desk is the only channel that can connect an order to the stock it was picked from.
Ask three specific things
The expiry date on that lot; whether a certificate of analysis exists for it; and whether that certificate reports a colony-forming count. The third is the one worth pressing on.
If you are told a certificate exists, ask for a copy and for the name of the laboratory. If one arrives, it is genuinely new information and this site would rather publish it than continue printing an absence.
Do not send any of this to [email protected]. The website inbox handles pages, typos, privacy, press and cannot see orders, so it cannot match a lot code to a purchase.
No expiry date is visible anywhere
Quietly the most practical absence on this product, and the easiest of them to fill.
No expiry or best-before date appears in any image supplied to this site. Not on the front panel, not on the side panel carrying storage and caution, and not in any of the marketing graphics.
On a shelf-stable tablet that is a minor irritation. On a product that declares three living species and asks to be refrigerated, the date is the closest thing to a usable statement about how long the organisms are expected to last.
It bears directly on pack size. A six-bottle pack is roughly six months of supply, and the last bottle is opened about five months after it arrives. Without a date there is no way to know whether that is comfortably inside the product’s life or at the edge of it.
The bottle you receive may well carry a date even though the artwork does not show one. Read it when the parcel arrives, and if it is not there, that is a question for the desk on the same call as the lot code.
What a six-bottle pack commits you to →Every line the label does print →
See the SlimTide packs
One, three or six bottles. The price is on the seller’s checkout page, because it is one of the few figures this site was never given — and a figure we were not given is not a figure we will print.
Shipping cost and delivery time were not supplied either, which matters more than usual on a product whose label asks for refrigeration. The guarantee is 60 days from purchase unless the sales page prints longer.
References
The sources behind the numbers on this page.
- Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of HealthProbiotics — Health Professional Fact Sheet · sourceThe definition of a probiotic, what colony-forming units are, the fact that US regulations require total microorganism weight rather than viable CFU, the advice to prefer products stating CFU at end of shelf life, strain specificity, and the safety record in immunocompromised people.
- U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationDietary Supplement Labeling Guide, Chapter IV: Nutrition Labeling · sourceWhat a Supplement Facts panel must carry, and the proprietary-blend rule: the blend's total weight on its own line with the ingredients listed underneath in descending order of predominance by weight.