What Cold Extraction Means
Cold extraction describes methods that pull a botanical's soluble constituents into a solvent without applying high heat. Bio-Botanica's proprietary Bio-Chelated® process combines two steps: cold percolation, in which the chosen solvent passes slowly through a bed of milled botanical at ambient temperature, and low-heat distillation, in which excess solvent is removed under gentle conditions to bring the extract to its final concentration.
The result is a full-spectrum extract that carries the botanical's naturally occurring constituents through in their native ratios, which is what Bio-Botanica means by a Holistically Balanced® extract.
How It Compares With Other Methods
- Hot-solvent extraction and reflux: faster and higher-yielding for some constituents, but heat can alter or lose volatile and heat-sensitive compounds and change the aroma and color of the finished extract.
- Supercritical CO2: excellent for non-polar, oil-soluble fractions such as essential-oil components; less suited to the water-soluble constituents that make up most of a full-spectrum herbal extract, and it produces an oily concentrate rather than a water-compatible liquid.
- Maceration: soaking the botanical in solvent for days; simple, but slower and less consistent than controlled percolation.
- Cold percolation with low-heat distillation: protects heat-sensitive constituents, keeps the natural profile of the plant, and yields water-compatible liquids (fluid, alcohol-free, glycerin and glycol extracts) and, with further drying, powdered and solid extracts.
What It Means for the Finished Extract
- Full-spectrum profile: the extract reflects the plant, not a single isolated marker. Standardized grades are available where a specification calls for one.
- Consistent sensory character: low heat limits the cooked notes and color shifts that hot processing can introduce.
- Format flexibility: the same process produces ingestible fluid and alcohol-free extracts for supplements and beverages, cosmetic-grade extracts in glycerin, butylene glycol, propylene glycol and Zemea® for topical work, and powdered and solid extracts for dry formats. Browse by extract type.
Questions to Ask Any Extract Supplier
- What extraction method and solvent are used, and at what temperature?
- Is the extract full-spectrum or standardized, and to which marker?
- What is the carrier in the finished extract, and at what percentage?
- Where is it manufactured, and under which quality systems?
- What testing is run per lot (identity, microbial, USP, heavy metals), and in which laboratory?
- What documents ship with a sample: Spec Sheet/TDS, Certificate of Analysis, Safety Data Sheet, regulatory packet?
Under 21 CFR 111 a dietary supplement manufacturer must independently qualify a supplier's Certificate of Analysis; MoCRA places a similar substantiation burden on cosmetic brands. A supplier that answers these questions in writing, up front, shortens that work.
How Bio-Botanica Answers Them
Production runs at Bio-Botanica's FDA-inspected cGMP facility in Hauppauge, New York, using the proprietary Bio-Chelated® process, which combines cold percolation with low-heat distillation to carry the botanical's naturally occurring constituents through in their native ratios. Identity, microbial, USP and heavy-metal testing run in our onsite laboratory (HPLC, UPLC-MS/MS, GC/MS, LC/MS and ICP/MS). We operate under NSF, cGMP and FSSC 22000 quality systems, with Kosher, Halal and Organic certification available on qualifying materials. Every sample ships with a Spec Sheet/TDS, a representative Certificate of Analysis and a Safety Data Sheet.
Read more about the Bio-Chelated® process and our quality and certifications, or talk to a formulator about a specific botanical.