Every few years, something happens in the pet industry that causes people to start asking questions about ingredient sourcing. Right now, that conversation is centered (again) around China.
I've received countless messages asking why I don't use ingredients sourced from China in my formulations.
That decision wasn't made overnight, and it wasn't based on politics or fear. It came out of years spent studying functional mushrooms, working alongside farmers, extractors, mycologists, herbalists, and botanists, and asking questions that, surprisingly, weren't always easy to answer.
I didn't begin this journey looking for reasons to avoid ingredients from China. Years ago I was recommending one of the largest functional mushroom companies in the world, because I believed they were producing exceptional products. As my education deepened, I realized I had a responsibility to understand not just what was in those products, but where those ingredients came from, how they were produced, and whether I could confidently stand behind them.
One Question Changed Everything: The Search for Independent Testing
I asked for a third-party Certificate of Analysis.
I wasn't asking for proprietary formulas or trade secrets. I simply wanted independent verification of the ingredients I was recommending. I was told that information was proprietary. After continuing to ask, I eventually received a Certificate of Analysis, but it wasn't from an independent laboratory. It was an in-house report.
For many people, that would have been enough.
For me, it wasn't.
That moment changed how I evaluate every ingredient I use. Not because I assumed something was wrong, but because I realized I had been accepting trust where I should have been asking for verification. I believed that if holistic veterinarians recommended it, it had to be good. I was wrong. They were taking the same claims at face value that I was. Not anymore.
The Hidden Risks of Commodity Supply Chains
The more I asked, the more I understood that a significant portion of the global functional mushroom and botanical ingredient market is built around commodity sourcing, with China serving as one of the world's largest producers and exporters. There are practical reasons for that. China has enormous production capacity, decades of cultivation experience with functional mushrooms, and a well-established export infrastructure. Those are real advantages, and they make it an attractive sourcing destination for a lot of companies.
But they also raise an important question.
How much does the brand selling the finished product actually know about the ingredient they're buying?
I wasn't interested in knowing only which species of mushroom was in a product. I wanted to know what it was grown on. How it was cultivated. How it was extracted, and by whom. Who verified its identity. Whether anyone at the company selling it had ever visited the farm where it originated.
As I dug deeper, I found that many finished-product companies couldn't answer those questions, because they weren't buying directly from growers. They were buying ingredients that had already moved through a commodity supply chain — brokers, exporters, processors, manufacturers — before ever reaching the brand whose name went on the label.
That model may work well for a lot of businesses. It wasn't the model I wanted to build my company around.
Why Mushroom Sourcing Requires Extreme Scrutiny
Mushrooms are bioaccumulators. They absorb compounds from the environment they grow in. That's one of the reasons they're such fascinating organisms — and one of the reasons cultivation practices deserve so much scrutiny. The substrate matters more than anything. The environment matters. The extraction process matters. The testing matters. Every step influences the quality of what ends up in the bottle.
You cannot evaluate a mushroom ingredient without knowing what it grew on. And you cannot know what it grew on through a broker.
What Published Research Reveals About Fungal & Botanical Adulteration
My concerns aren't based solely on my own experience. There is a substantial published record documenting exactly the problems I ran into.
In 2017, researchers working with the United States Pharmacopeial Convention bought nineteen reishi supplements off the U.S. market and analyzed them. Only five — about a quarter — actually matched what their labels claimed. Starch-like polysaccharides, which are not present in reishi fruiting bodies, showed up in thirteen of the nineteen.¹ A separate DNA study of commercial reishi products and grow-your-own kits found nearly all of them labeled with the wrong species.²
In 2024, the Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program — a joint effort of the American Botanical Council, the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, and the University of Mississippi — published its first bulletin ever devoted to a fungal ingredient. The subject was cordyceps. Wild cordyceps can sell for tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram, and the bulletin documents how routinely it is substituted, diluted, and misrepresented as a result.³
Broaden the lens to botanicals generally and the picture doesn't improve. One audit of twenty-six traditional Chinese medicine products found that ninety-two percent showed some form of contamination or substitution, including one product with arsenic more than ten times the acceptable limit.⁴ A survey of 1,773 herbal samples found roughly thirty percent carried at least one heavy metal above permissible limits.⁵
And on the specific question of what is actually in mushrooms grown in China — the most useful data comes from Chinese public health researchers themselves. In 2024, the Xi'an Center for Disease Control and Prevention tested 244 mushroom samples collected from markets across ten cities in Shaanxi Province. Nearly a quarter exceeded China's own national limit for cadmium. Eight percent exceeded the limit for arsenic. For one species in particular, Agaricus blazei, the combined hazard index came out at 12.9 — a level their own methodology classifies as a large health risk. Their conclusion was a call for stronger supervision of how mushrooms are grown, processed, and sold.⁶
That study is worth sitting with, because it is not a trade-war talking point. It is a government public health agency, in China, documenting a real problem in its own supply and asking for better oversight. It also explains itself: the authors point out that mushrooms accumulate metals from soil and substrate far more aggressively than ordinary plants do.
At the U.S. border, the pattern shows up in the refusal records. USDA's Economic Research Service, analyzing FDA data, found that refusals of Chinese food shipments cluster around recurring problems — filth, unapproved additives, and veterinary drug residues.⁷ The catch is that FDA has historically been able to physically examine only about one percent of incoming shipments, and manufacturers are not required to disclose the country of origin of individual ingredients.
I want to be careful about what all of this does and doesn't prove.
It does not prove that every Chinese ingredient is contaminated, or that Chinese growers are careless. Plenty are excellent. The Shaanxi study itself found most samples within limits. And several of the reishi studies tested products bought in the United States without tracing where the raw material came from — which is its own kind of evidence, because nobody could tell.
What it proves is this: mushrooms concentrate whatever is in their substrate, adulteration in long commodity chains is profitable and specifically engineered to pass standard tests, and the volume moving through those chains is far beyond what any regulator is checking. In that environment, a piece of paper is not verification. Being there is.
So rather than keep trying to work out which suppliers inside a massive global market I could trust, I chose a different path.
Lessons From History: The Legacy of Pet Food Safety Failures
In 2007, wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate imported from China were deliberately spiked with melamine to fake a higher protein reading on standard nitrogen tests. The adulterated ingredients passed routine screening because they were engineered to. Thousands of dogs and cats died in kidney failure, more than a hundred brands pulled product, and a federal grand jury eventually returned indictments.⁸
Years later, the FDA logged thousands of complaints about jerky treats — most of them sourced from China — involving more than a thousand canine deaths. After the better part of a decade of investigation, the agency never identified a cause.⁹
I was in the pet industry for both. I watched people who loved their animals feed them something they had every reason to believe was safe.
Direct Relationships: Prioritizing U.S. Sourcing & Complete Traceability
Today I work with growers and wild foragers here in the United States, because relationships matter to me as much as laboratory reports. I can visit the farms. I can walk the forests where wild mushrooms are harvested. I can see what the mushrooms are grown on. I can watch the extraction process. I can ask hard questions face-to-face instead of relying on paperwork sent halfway around the world.
Do I still want third-party Certificates of Analysis? Absolutely.
Independent testing is essential, and every responsible company should embrace it. But a COA is only one piece of the story. A laboratory can only test for the analytes on its panel. A COA cannot replace knowing your growers, understanding your supply chain, and being confident in every step that happened before that sample reached the lab.
I am certain there are dedicated farmers, skilled cultivators, and reputable companies producing excellent ingredients in China. But I can't meet them. I can't walk their farms. And I can't verify what happens to those ingredients between their facility and mine.
This has never been about condemning a country. It's about choosing a sourcing model I can personally verify.
When I can work directly with growers I know, visit the farms myself, confirm cultivation and extraction practices, review independent testing, and build lasting relationships with the people producing my ingredients, I don't see a compelling reason to buy from a commodity market that offers me less.
Some companies source for cost and convenience. That's not what I'm building.
8 Reasons I Choose to Source My Mushroom Ingredients in the United States
1. Every ingredient is independently verified. Every raw ingredient I purchase arrives with a third-party Certificate of Analysis, and every finished product is independently tested again before it reaches my customers. Verification isn't optional. It's the foundation.
2. I know my growers. I have personal relationships with the people growing my herbs and mushrooms. I'm not buying anonymous ingredients through a broker or a commodity marketplace.
3. I know how the mushrooms are grown. Cultivation methods, growing substrates, environmental conditions, harvesting practices — I verify them directly instead of reading about them.
4. I know how they're extracted. Extraction matters as much as cultivation. I know who performs it, how it's done, and what quality standards are used throughout.
5. I have complete traceability. I can trace every ingredient from the farm or forest to the extraction facility to the finished product.
6. I build relationships, not supply chains. I choose long-term partnerships with growers, foragers, extractors, and manufacturers who share my commitment to quality and transparency. Those relationships are worth far more to me than the lowest-cost supplier.
7. I support American farmers and small businesses. Whenever possible, I invest in U.S. growers, wild foragers, and processors who are passionate about producing exceptional ingredients and preserving their craft.
8. It reflects my Do No Harm™ philosophy. Every ingredient should earn its place in a formulation. That starts long before I formulate anything — with how it's grown, harvested, extracted, tested, and handled across its entire journey.
References
Identity and adulteration in medicinal mushroom products
1. Wu D-T, Deng Y, Chen L-X, Zhao J, Bzhelyansky A, Li S-P. "Evaluation on quality consistency of Ganoderma lucidum dietary supplements collected in the United States." Scientific Reports 7:7792 (2017). Nineteen reishi supplements purchased in the U.S. were analyzed; the measured ingredients of only 5 (26.3%) were consistent with their labels. Starch-like polysaccharides, which are absent from G. lucidum fruiting bodies, were detected in 13 of 19 (68.4%). Co-authored with the United States Pharmacopeial Convention. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-06336-3
2. Loyd AL, Richter BS, Jusino MA, Truong C, Smith ME, Blanchette RA, Smith JA. "Identifying the 'Mushroom of Immortality': Assessing the Ganoderma Species Composition in Commercial Reishi Products." Frontiers in Microbiology 9:1557 (2018). Twenty manufactured products and seventeen grow-your-own kits sold as G. lucidum were sequenced; nearly all proved to be a different species than labeled. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01557
3. Hobbs C, Upton R, Gafner S. "Cordyceps." Botanical Adulterants Prevention Bulletin. ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program, October 2024. The program's first bulletin devoted to a fungal ingredient; documents substitution and misrepresentation of cordyceps, driven in part by wild O. sinensis prices reaching up to US$50,000/kg. Peer-reviewed by 21 experts from academia, contract laboratories, and industry. https://umb.herbalgram.org/media/qs2lhbm0/bapp-babs-cordyceps-102024-v1-final2.pdf
Contaminants in mushrooms and botanicals grown in China
4. Coghlan ML, Maker G, Crighton E, et al. "Combined DNA, toxicological and heavy metal analyses provides an auditing toolkit to improve pharmacovigilance of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)." Scientific Reports 5:17475 (2015). Of 26 TCM products audited, 92% showed some form of contamination and/or substitution; one contained arsenic at more than ten times the acceptable limit. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep17475
5. Luo L, Wang B, Jiang J, et al. "Heavy Metal Contaminations in Herbal Medicines: Determination, Comprehensive Risk Assessments, and Solutions." Frontiers in Pharmacology 11:595335 (2020). Across 1,773 samples, 30.51% contained at least one metal above permissible limits under the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2020.595335
6. Qin G, Liu J, Zou K, He F, Li Y, Liu R, Zhang P, Zhao G, Wang T, Chen B (Xi'an Center for Disease Control and Prevention). "Analysis of heavy metal characteristics and health risks of edible mushrooms in the mid-western region of China." Scientific Reports 14:26960 (2024). 244 mushroom samples were collected across ten cities in Shaanxi Province and analyzed by ICP-MS. 56 of 244 (22.95%) exceeded China's national limit for cadmium and 20 of 244 (8.20%) exceeded the limit for arsenic. Hazard index values exceeded 1.0 for five species; for Agaricus blazei the value was 12.87, which the study's own methodology classifies as a large health risk. The authors note that mushrooms accumulate cadmium, lead, and mercury from soil and substrate far more strongly than vascular plants, and call for stronger supervision of cultivation, processing, and sale. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-78091-1
The U.S. import record
7. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. Imports From China and Food Safety Issues (EIB-52). Analysis of FDA refusal data found that refusals of Chinese shipments cluster around recurring problems including filth, unsafe additives, labeling violations, and veterinary drug residues, and notes the difficulty of monitoring hazards arising at varying points in a long supply chain. https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/publications/44390/EIB-52.pdf
Documented failures in the pet industry
8. 2007 melamine pet food recalls. Wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate imported from China were adulterated with melamine and cyanuric acid to inflate apparent protein content on nitrogen-based tests. Recalls covered more than 100 brands; consumer reports to the FDA suggest roughly 1,950 cats and 2,200 dogs died. FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations alleged more than 800 tons of adulterated wheat gluten entered the U.S. between November 2006 and February 2007, and a federal grand jury returned indictments in February 2008. AAFCO's own account notes that the adulterated ingredients passed routine screening because they appeared genuine under standard tests. AAFCO, "When Things Go Wrong": https://www.aafco.org/consumers/understanding-pet-food/when-things-go-wrong/
9. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "FDA Investigates Animal Illnesses Linked to Jerky Pet Treats." As of December 31, 2015, FDA had received approximately 5,200 complaints involving more than 6,200 dogs and more than 1,140 canine deaths, most often linked to jerky treats sourced from China. FDA notes that manufacturers are not required to list the country of origin for each ingredient used in their products. No definitive cause was ever identified. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/outbreaks-and-advisories/fda-investigates-animal-illnesses-linked-jerky-pet-treats
