A NEW NON-PROFIT BOTANICAL TESTING SERVICE IN NORTH CAROLINA

Welcome and thank you for visiting USBSL (www.usbsl.org), a botanical ingredient testing resource for natural products industry supply chain stakeholders. If your company is a grower, wild-harvester, consolidator, processor, or manufacturer of medicinal or functional botanical ingredients used in foods or dietary supplements, USBSL hopes to serve your needs. 

USBSL offers routine botanical identity confirmation, microbial, heavy metal, and pesticide contaminant testing, and phytochemical constituent quantitation, including adulterant screening for certain botanicals. USBSL is managed by Bent Creek Institute, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, with botanical identity testing anchored by the Bent Creek Germplasm Repository (BCGR) under Dr. Joe-Ann McCoy. BCGR is the botanical research division of The North Carolina Arboretum near Asheville, NC and serves as an independent botanical and endophyte seed collection. BCGR is also an industry resource for source-verified and reproducible botanical vouchers. USBSL has partnered with the NC BioNetwork BioBusiness Center, the David H. Murdock Research Institute, and academic research laboratories in North Carolina to provide USBSL clients with a portfolio of botanical testing services. 

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USBSL clients will gain the benefit of...

A non-profit, university-based collaborative of testing laboratories in North Carolina with core botanical expertise

  • USBSL is a distributed network of North Carolina applied science laboratories with focused botanical research and professional teaching pedigrees. Partnering institutions include the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, the North Carolina BioNetwork, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, and the David H. Murdock Research Institute.

A dedicated medicinal plant and endophyte germplasm repository backed by reproducible and traceable vouchers

  • Under the leadership and supervision of Dr. Joe-Ann McCoy, Bent Creek Germplasm Repository (BCGR), based at The North Carolina Arboretum near Asheville, is responsible for USBSL client botanical identity confirmation. BCGR has a growing, independent North American medicinal plant and endophyte germpasm collection consisting of 100% reproducible, repeatable, and traceable accessions upon which our vouchers are based. A full array of macroscopy, microscopy, chromatography, mass spec, and DNA methods are available for achieving botanical indentity confirmation and adulterant detection.

Secure on-line barcoded herbal sample and test status tracking through every step from sample shipment to receipt of your COA

  • USBSL will use a proprietary and secure web-based database for client-directed sample registration, barcoding, shipping, and in-process testing status updates. USBSL clients can determine how frequently they would like to receive e-mail updates on the exact status of their samples and estimated completion times. As soon as your express courier picks up your sample shipment, you will be able to see your sample's progress all the way through various testing procedures to the issuance of your digital COA.

One-stop-shopping for clients seeking routine botanical identity, microbial, heavy metals, and pesticides testing

  • USBSL clients can send a single aggregate herbal ingredient sample and get back a complete panel of routine identity and purity test results. Clients can pick and choose which tests they want--or they can select the full panel of tests and receive a discounted overall price. 

Secure, blinded, anonymous testing at USBSL partnering labs

  • USBSL lab managers and technicians can not know the identity of the company that submitted the original botanical ingredient. Only BCI, Inc., the executive and administrative manager of USBSL and the issuer of its COAs, will know which sample results correspond to specific USBSL clients. This up-front client sample blinding protocol inherently protects against bias in reporting each client's final results.

Sophisticated state-of-the-art instrumentation in microscopy, chromatography, mass spec, DNA, and NMR

  • The USBSL network of laboratories has invested in current, state-of-the-art analytical equipment at every juncture for botanical testing involving optical, reflectance, phyto-chemical, genomic, and molecular mass and structure characterization. We bring a full array of sophisticated analytical technology to each client's particular testing needs.

Standard and expedited testing timeframes

  • USBSL offers industry-standard turnaround times for botanical testing, as well as expedited turnaround times depending on client needs. Certain test results may be available on a next-day basis, depending on current client testing loads. Please contact USBSL for more details.