A certificate is a composition and contamination document: it says what is in a material and how much, and is silent on every question about outcome. What separates a real one from a specification sheet is set out in the definitional article. This page is the test itself, and TARE’s own score on it.
Six questions to ask of any certificate of analysis
Ask them in this order, of any brand, including this one. Five of the six are answerable from the face of the document in a minute.
- Whose sample was tested? The finished product you would receive, or a raw material the ingredient supplier bought before anything was filled.
- Does it name a lot, and is it the lot in your container? A certificate with no lot code names nothing. One naming a raw-material lot names something real that is still not the thing on your shelf.
- Who is the customer of record? A certificate is addressed to whoever commissioned the work. If that is not the brand selling to you, the brand did not commission it.
- Which of the four axes were run — identity, potency, heavy metals, microbiology — and does any result column read Not Tested? A printed table with an empty result column is not a result.
- Is each figure a result or a specification? A specification is a target the maker set; a result is what an instrument returned. Only one is evidence, and most documents in this category carry only the first.
- What is the date, and does it describe the product on sale today? A certificate can be genuine, complete, and about a formula that has changed since.
A seventh is asked of the answers rather than the paper: does the brand publish the questions it fails? The six above can be copied in an afternoon. The table below cannot, because filling it in honestly is the part nobody wants to do.
How TARE’s three certificates answer those six questions
Every cell is transcribed from the document itself. Where an axis was not run, the cell says so: the absence is the finding.
| Under Load — collagen | Base Work — creatine | Night Work — magnesium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whose sample | TARE’s own fill lot 121125450 — the lot the tub was filled from | the supplier’s raw material, lot CM20251225A — a sealed poly bag from Accobio USA Inc. | the supplier’s raw material, lot MGL260212 — a sealed poly bag of powder |
| Customer of record | not a field on this document — the laboratory belongs to the company that makes the powder | Vox Nutrition — not TARE, not the manufacturer | Vox Nutrition — not TARE, not the manufacturer |
| Laboratory | ViaCore Nutrition, El Reno OK — the laboratory of the company that makes the powder | Ethos Analytics, Phoenix AZ — independent of the maker | Ethos Analytics, Phoenix AZ — independent of the maker |
| Work dated | 2025-12-22 | 2026-02-18 | 2026-02-24 |
| Identity | NOT RUN — no infrared scan, no chromatographic fingerprint. The ingredient line reads “collagen peptides”, which is a statement rather than a test | MEASURED — scored from the assay row below; TARE argues against itself on that under the table † | NOT RUN — no identity section exists. Nothing on the document distinguishes glycinate from oxide, citrate or a buffered blend, and the magnesium assay below counts magnesium without saying which salt it is |
| Potency | MEASURED — protein 9.8 g against a 9 g specification, method ISO 14891:2002, in the document’s 10 g serving | MEASURED — creatine monohydrate 99.87% against a specification of more than 99.5%, HPLC, limit of quantitation 100 ppm | MEASURED — magnesium 102.54 mg against a 91.6 mg specification, ICP-MS, in the laboratory’s own 926 mg serving — not three capsules |
| Heavy metals | MEASURED — lead 0.07 mcg against a 0.5 mcg Proposition 65 limit by ICP-MS; mercury, arsenic and cadmium below the detectable limit | MEASURED — ICP-MS on a numeric USP <233> page, every line a pass | MEASURED — ICP-MS on a numeric USP <233> page: arsenic 0.034 ppm, lead 0.044 ppm, cadmium and mercury below the limit of quantitation, every line a pass; limits printed in mcg per day, no conversion on the document |
| Microbiology | MEASURED — five rows, every one a pass, by AOAC and VIDAS methods | MEASURED — Petrifilm/qPCR, every line a pass | MEASURED — Petrifilm/qPCR, seven organisms, tested 2026-02-23, pass |
| Lot Mark | 3 / 4, on TARE’s own fill lot | 4 / 4, on the supplier’s raw material, not on a TARE tub | 3 / 4, identity not run, on the supplier’s raw material, in the laboratory’s serving |
† The objection TARE prints against itself. Identity and potency for Base Work are both scored from one HPLC row. On a one-ingredient powder an assay reporting 99.87% creatine monohydrate says what the substance is as well as how much of it there is, and TARE counts it as both — while printing that someone could reasonably call it 3 / 4.
A Lot Mark counts what a document measured; it does not weigh who measured it or what was in the bag. Base Work’s 4 / 4 is the best count in the range and sits on raw material tested for another company. Under Load’s 3 / 4 is the weaker count and is the only one of the three run on a lot that went into a TARE container. Neither number means anything read apart from the row saying whose sample it was, which is why the provenance sits in the same table rather than a paragraph away.
What NOT RUN means, and where ours read it
NOT RUN means no row of any kind exists on the document, and the absence is the finding. It is not a failure and not a pass. It is also not the same as a figure with no test behind it — a composition line or a limit — which is a weaker state again.
Two cells above read NOT RUN: Under Load’s identity and Night Work’s identity. Until 15 October 2026 it was four — the magnesium document then held printed a heavy-metal table with arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury on it and the words Not Tested in every result cell, and no potency section at all. The document the manufacturer’s catalog has carried since 15 September 2026 prints figures in those cells and a magnesium assay, and runs no identity test. That is why Night Work’s mark is 3 of 4, and why the one measured magnesium figure on this site is per 926 mg of raw powder rather than per three capsules.
What TARE does not have
- No document TARE holds is an independent laboratory’s test of a finished TARE product. Not one of the three.
- The one certificate naming TARE’s own fill lot was run by the laboratory of the company that manufactures the powder. A real test of a real lot, and a weaker chain than an outside one — which the reader should hear here rather than work out.
- No magnesium figure on a TARE label was measured by anyone. The 275 mg of elemental magnesium on the panel rests on the manufacturer’s written confirmation, dated 27 August 2026. The document held for that product measures 102.54 mg per 926 mg laboratory serving, on a raw-material lot — a different serving on a different sample, never run forward to three capsules as measured.
- TARE holds no certification of any kind, and there is no badge on any TARE surface. Certificates, and what they do and do not cover, are published at taketare.com/testing.
Where the documents themselves are published
Each is published whole and unaltered, under written permission given by the manufacturer on 17 August 2026. This page is the comparison; Testing & Certification is the archive.
- Lot 121125450 — Under Load, collagen: Lot Mark 3 / 4, on TARE’s own fill lot.
- Lot CM20251225A — Base Work, creatine: Lot Mark 4 / 4, on the supplier’s raw material, not a TARE tub.
- Night Work — the magnesium document: Lot Mark 3 / 4, identity not run, on raw-material lot MGL260212 tested for the ingredient supplier, in the laboratory’s own serving. Addressed by product rather than lot code, because MGL260212 is not a TARE fill lot and must never be presented as the lot in a bottle.
Related: how a specification differs from a result, and the sixty-second label procedure. Both are written to be used on any brand, which is the only way either is worth anything.