“Is the hoodia gordonii that I am planning to buy the Real Thing?” With fake abounding, one has to ask this question. In fact, Alkemist Pharmaceuticals, a highly reputed company tested hundreds of products that were sent to them willingly and discovered that over 80% of them were fraud!
Hoodia gordonii only grows in Southern Africa and has been listed as an endangered species. Anyone wishing to import it has to have a CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) certificate to prove that the hoodia gordonii is genuine and has been imported legally.
Now most hoodia companies rely solely on a CITES certificate and testing by Alkemist Pharmaceuticals to prove that the Hoodia Gordonii that they are selling is authentic.
But the problem here is, that many of these websites proudly displaying these two certificates are doing so under false pretexts. On some websites, the certificates are blurred and barely readable. On others, some of the text appears to have been blacked out possibly because it belongs to some other company or because it is out of date.
So now, what does one do? The answer lies in the fact that there are more ways than just the two mentioned above, of certifying that the hoodia gordonii in the product is genuine.
The Organics Annex Certificate – this proves that the hoodia gordonii in the product has been imported from the farmers in South Africa and sent directly to the USA – so, no agents in the middle and no lying around in storage sheds for who knows how long. Furthermore, it proves that the Hoodia Gordonii was grown organically. A Certificate of Analysis (COA) – this is issued before the Hoodia Gordonii enters the USA. Proving that the hoodia gordonii has been analyzed under HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography), and is not only genuine, but contains no contaminants as well.
Now, let us look at UniqueHoodia. UniqueHoodia has undertaken the responsibility to obtain the Organics Annex Certificate as well as the Certificate of Analysis.
Naturally, they have the CITES certificate and have had their Hoodia Gordonii tested by Alkemist Pharmaceuticals. In addition to all this, UniqueHoodia has had their pure hoodia gordonii tested by CNL (Certified Natural Laboratories) as well, another highly reputed laboratory and their product has passed these tests with flying colors. This goes to show you that they are selling pure, fresh and safe 100% real Hoodia Gordonii in their products.