Why Ceritas
About
Our mission is to build a hub for research grounded, premium health foods and supplements.
We believe that consumers shouldn't need a PhD to know which products are genuinely high quality.
Too many brands rely on celebrity endorsement, hype or baseless claims of "health benefits", "high strength" or "premium", without providing meaningful data or independent verification. Without evidence, these claims are largely meaningless.
Unlike the tightly controlled world of pharmaceuticals, health foods and supplements vary dramatically in their potency, freshness markers and contaminant levels. While some companies provide their own test results, the information is inconsistent, hard to find, difficult to compare and is vulnerable to bias.
How we test
1. PURCHASE
We anonymously purchase products available to everyday consumers.
2. TEST
Samples are sent to accredited laboratories for rigorous independent testing.
3. PUBLISH
We freely publish results -good or bad - so you can make informed choices.
Product category selection
Our team performs research to select health foods and supplements for review with the qualities that follow. First and most importantly, the selected product must have genuine health and nutrition literature supporting its consumption. Pseudoscience is not perpetuated here. Secondly, the product must have active ingredients, known markers of quality or known contaminants that can be identified by laboratory testing. Finally, the product should demonstrate an information gap, where we at Ceritas can provide value to consumers by bridging it.
Literature review
We perform a literature review to ensure we are testing for what matters.
Supplier and product selection
We only select suppliers with a reputation for quality. We deliberately choose products that are most likely to offer maximum freshness, high potency, and low chances of contamination. For olive oil, this translates to early-harvest, current-season oil only.
Anonymous purchasing
We purchase all products for review anonymously, from online or in retail stores without supplier knowledge or involvement. Following purchase, our products are rapidly shipped to independent Australian laboratories for testing. Utmost care is taken to ensure minimal quality degradation during the shipping and handling process. For oils - this means that full unopened bottles are sent to the lab, kept in the boxes that they are purchased and shipped in and always kept below 15 degrees Celsius while in our custody.
Australian Laboratories
We utilise National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) accredited Australian laboratories. For olive oils, these include New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development Wagga Laboratories, and the specialised Modern Olives laboratory. While the laboratories perform the analytical testing services, they are not involved in any other activities including but not limited to: project planning, ranking, display of, or review of brands and products. The involved laboratories do not endorse, certify, or support any of the samples or brands tested, displayed or discussed. All interpretation, scoring and conclusions drawn from the laboratory results are solely those of Ceritas.
Publishing and ranking
We uniquely score products based on our interpretation of the data and broader evidence base. We have developed a unique weighted "Ceritas Score", which we've given to each product. This score balances active ingredient levels, markers of freshness, presence of contaminants and value for money. All of our data is freely published.
Transparency
We are a for-profit company. We may use affiliate links to fund future research and testing. Any product purchased via links from our website gives us a small commission, at no additional cost to the consumer.
Our Team
We are a new, family owned Australian business. The idea for Ceritas began around our own kitchen table, driven by a shared frustration with how difficult it is to find trustworthy information about health products. We're building the resource we wished existed.
Dr. Conrad Jackson
Conrad is an Australian medical doctor graduating in 2015 and a new father. Conrad has a particular interest in nutrition and longievity medicine, and data backed health.
Ms. Anthea Jackson
Anthea is an Australian nutrition and health enthusiast and working mother. She boasts a Diploma of Health Science and, Bachelor of Biomedical Science, graduating in 2018.