Last updated: April 22, 2026

By Steve Schultheis, Founder — Steve's Goods

The Lab Reports library is the receipts side of Steve's Goods. Every batch we produce — every gummy bottle, every tincture, every kilo of distillate, every topical and every softgel — is third-party tested by an ISO-accredited laboratory and published here with the batch number printed on the product label. There is no filtering, no hiding of failed runs, no "representative batch" fiction. The COA that ships with the bottle is the COA for the bottle.

What a Certificate of Analysis is

A Certificate of Analysis, or COA, is a signed lab document that describes exactly what is inside a specific production batch. For a hemp product, it is the only document that lets a buyer, a regulator or a retailer confirm that the bottle label is honest. A COA is tied to a batch number — not to the product in general, and not to a "representative" sample. When that connection breaks, the document stops meaning anything. That is why every Steve's Goods label carries the batch number printed on-pack and every batch number maps to a single COA in this archive.

Why a lab report exists

Two reasons. The first is regulatory: hemp products in the United States operate under the 2018 Farm Bill (0.3% delta-9 THC dry-weight on the plant) and, starting November 12, 2026, H.R. 5371's finished-container THC ceiling. A lab report is the instrument that converts those rules from policy language into verifiable numbers on your bottle. The second reason is trust: a hemp label can claim anything; a batch-matched COA either agrees with the label or doesn't. We lean on the second reason every day.

What a Steve's Goods COA covers

• Cannabinoid potency. CBD, CBG, CBN, delta-8, delta-9, THCA and the rest of the active cannabinoid profile, expressed in milligrams per unit and percent by weight. For gummies and other ingestibles, totals are reported at the finished-container level so the H.R. 5371 ceiling can be verified without additional math.
• Residual solvents. Everything the extraction process might have left behind — ethanol, butane, propane, hexane, pentane and the rest — measured in parts per million against pharmacopoeia limits. A passing COA means the solvent signal is below method detection limits for every compound tested.
• Pesticides. Broad-panel screen against agricultural residues. Our Kentucky-grown biomass gets tested at the farm level and again at the finished-product stage, so a pesticide event in the field is caught before it ever reaches a formulation tank.
• Heavy metals. Lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury — the four panels most regulators care about — measured against legally enforceable limits. Hemp is a known metal accumulator, which is why we panel every batch rather than sampling occasionally.
• Microbiological. Where the product format requires it (ingestibles especially), yeast, mold, aerobic plate count and pathogen screens for Salmonella and E. coli are part of the release criteria. No ingestible ships without a passing microbial panel.

How to match a COA to a bottle

Every Steve's Goods product has a batch number printed on the label. The Lab Reports archive is organized by SKU and batch; find the matching row and you'll see the full, unedited COA PDF from the testing lab. If you bought a bottle a year ago and the batch isn't in the current archive, email us and we will pull the historical record from our retention system — we keep every COA we've ever issued.

Why this matters more post-H.R. 5371

The federal framework taking effect November 12, 2026 caps total THC at 0.4 mg per finished container for ingestible hemp products (not per serving, not per gummy). A COA is the instrument that tells a retailer, a regulator or a buyer whether a bottle complies with that ceiling. We've been structuring our testing program around container-level totals for years, which is why the post-5371 transition is a relabeling exercise here rather than a reformulation scramble.

Independent labs, not in-house spin

We do not do our own final-release testing. Third-party labs — plural, rotated periodically to avoid single-source bias — run the cannabinoid, solvent, metals, pesticide and microbial panels. When a batch fails, it fails publicly, we reject it, and the successful re-work batch gets its own COA with a new batch number. That's what honest lab reports look like.

What a COA does not tell you

A COA is a chemistry document. It verifies what is inside a batch and at what concentration. It is not a medical document and it is not a safety guarantee for any individual: it cannot predict how a given person will respond to a product, it cannot replace a conversation with a licensed healthcare provider, and it cannot describe the experience of using the product. Read a COA the way you would read a nutrition panel — it tells you what's in there; it does not tell you how the meal will sit.

Frequently asked questions

Can I trust a COA the brand paid for?
Yes, provided the lab is independent and ISO-accredited. The payment model does not change the chemistry — what matters is whether the lab is ISO/IEC 17025 accredited, whether it is named on the document, and whether the batch number on the COA matches the batch number on your bottle. All three should be verifiable.

Does a COA expire?
The chemistry does not expire, but cannabinoid content can shift over long storage (CBN, for example, forms as THC oxidizes). For retail freshness we recommend the most recent batch; for compliance purposes the COA remains valid for the life of that batch.

What should I do if a COA and a label disagree?
Believe the COA. Contact the brand. If the brand can't reconcile it, that is reason enough to switch. A Steve's Goods label that disagrees with its COA is a defect — email us and we will make it right.

Do you publish failed COAs?
Failed batches are rejected, not shipped. What we publish is the successful re-work batch. The earlier failure is retained in our internal retention system and is available to state regulators on request.

Do international buyers see the same COAs?
Yes. The archive is public and the same COA ships with the bottle regardless of destination.

Related reading

• Hemp Guides library
• Understanding Lab Reports (expanded)
• CBD Dosage Guide