WTF is a COA?

what is it, where do you get one, and why does it matter?

A certificate of analysis (COA) in the cannabis world is a verified document with test results for a bud sample. It has ingredient potency measures that include things like THC, CBD, CBG, CBN, and terpenes. Plus there’s a measure of heavy metals and pesticides, which can lead to a pass or fail based on regulation limits.

Legit brands in the industry will partner up with certified third party laboratories to verify and publish their lab results.

Skepticism over the COAs exists because the testing process and the COAs themselves aren’t really available to everyone - and because some brands (that won’t be named) haven’t been straight up about their numbers.

So we decided to talk about this with Rick, the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information Officer at High North Laboratories. High North is the biggest analytical lab focused on testing strictly for the Canadian weed market. They’ve tested our buds, and Rick knows his shit. This is what he told us..

HOW MANY TESTS DO YOU RUN TO GET ONE FULL COA?
CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE WHOLE PROCESS?

RICK: We only test the client sample once. We don’t create multiple results, because what we’re talking about is quality testing. Imagine if we test a sample twice for contaminant testing and one is a pass but one is a fail.. Now what? We want to avoid any outliers. We have a whole bunch of internal quality controls per batch. There's quality controls at the beginning of the batch, the middle of the batch, and the end of the batch. This ensures that the instrument is operating properly throughout the entire batch. 

We also include internal standards within the actual client samples. So we put a little bit of a known ad, like ibuprofen, for example. Then we can see if there was any dilution in the sample preparation. We really go above and beyond to eliminate any kind of errors in that sense, with all the quality checks that we have. And those are just physical ones. 

WHAT’S THE HIGH NORTH FACILITY LIKE?

RICK: We've got a 16,000 square foot facility in Woodbridge. We built this place. Spent a few months with a process engineer, then took it to an architect and electrical mechanical consultant. We got the keys in September of 2018. It's been great. We've got state of the art equipment and the staff is amazing. So many clients are very happy because we're exclusively focused on cannabis-specific methods, not some catch-all method. We don’t look at ourselves as pharmaceutical - we're a cannabis company. I've been growing weed for 23 years myself. I don’t feel like I work inside a lab. I'm not a scientist. To me it’s just all about cannabis here.

CAN YOU TELL US HOW THE TEAM WORKS?

We order in outside samples from an accredited proficiency testing provider. We don't know the results - we submit the results. Only then do you get a pass or fail. We have a whole quality control team as well as a quality assurance team that has to review and approve all data before it even gets to the quality assurance team, who then begins the final review and the COA creation. 

And we've got a team approach. The better that LPs and retailers do, the better we're going to do. We're in this together, and we don't want to be looked at as a burden. We want to be looked at as another teammate another part of the process. We are a resource.

THERE’S A LOT OF STUFF ON A COA.
WHAT ARE WE REALLY LOOKING AT?

RICK: We probably do like 100 to 150 COA tests per day. It's just clockwork now. For each one there’s a cannabinoid breakdown, contaminants, there’s a terpenes analysis, there’s the THC with the percentile of the comparative analysis. An interesting thing about terpenes is that the percentiles for a particular terpene could be extremely high and still only be a total of 0.006%. There’s really a lot to it.

WHY IS IT BROKEN DOWN BY PERCENTILE?

RICK: Well, we do a comparative analysis. So each analyte has a comparative analysis for all of our databases for this particular matrix, which in this case is dried flower. What we look at is just the data from the lab. That includes everything.

Another thing to we're getting into is flavonoid testing. We've just finished our development of that method and are aiming to get that validated so we can provide it to clients.

WHAT ARE FLAVONOIDS?

RICK: Flavonoids are kind of like terpenes or cannabinoids in the sense that it's an organic compound that's naturally present. It contributes to the flavour. So for example, Khalifa - the flavonoid that's behind the Khalifa Mints - is a certain taste that you don't get anywhere else. First puff, you take? It’s like, wow, this tastes really good. You look at the COA, terpenes are great, tests high, 4-5% terpenes - amazing. But the profile itself isn't anything that you haven't seen before. All the usual suspects are there. So why does this taste different than the next flower that kind of has the same terpene profile? It’s because of flavonoids.

And they have a really therapeutic and medicinal effect, even at what would seem to be low percentages, because they don’t need to be an incredibly high concentration to be very powerful. It’s still new to me, and new to the industry, but we keep on going with the research and eventually we’ll be able to find out if and how flavonoids translate through extracts. We know a lot but there’s so much to learn. 

CAN YOU TEST FOR SPECIFIC TERPENES TO GET A HIGHER TERPENE PERCENTAGE?

RICK: There's different labs that tests for different amounts of terpenes. And that, obviously, can affect your overall percentage. To my understanding, if you're only testing for, let's say, 30 of them instead of 100, then it's gonna be a lower percentage than it could have been. Right now we test for 42 terpenes, and we're going up to about 65. Different labs do things their own way and test for less terpenes if they’re, let’s say, trying to get a certain number. But it doesn’t really change much because a lot of those smaller terpenes are not in abundance at all.