The feed-additive market is full of products that look identical on the bag and behave nothing alike in the mixer. "Emulsifier" is a category, not a guarantee. Two products labelled identically can contain dramatically different ratios of active phospholipids to inert carriers — silica, calcium carbonate, salt, ground rice husk.
Three quality checks separate real product from filler:
One — demand the active concentration percentage. Ask the supplier for the specific percentage of active lecithin in the product. A real emulsifier states it on the COA. A filler-loaded product evades the question or quotes a "blend" figure that is technically true but meaningless.
Two — identify the carrier material. Carriers such as silica or calcium carbonate dilute product stability and ash level. They're not inherently bad — they help flowability — but at the wrong inclusion ratio they undermine the function you're paying for. Ask. Read the spec sheet. Look at the ash percentage.
Three — review moisture and ash specifications. High ash content often indicates heavy dilution with mineral-based fillers. Moisture above 4–5% in a "powder" emulsifier raises questions about both stability and active content.
The bench test you can run yourself takes 30 minutes and a kitchen scale:
Step 1. Blend 3 g of emulsifier with 100 g of oil. Mix thoroughly until homogeneous before adding any water.
Step 2. Add 100 g of water at 40 °C. Stir continuously for 2 minutes to ensure proper emulsification.
Step 3. Stop stirring. Monitor for 30 minutes.
If the emulsion is stable for ≥30 minutes, you have a high-performance, active-ingredient-concentrated emulsifier. If the emulsion breaks in under 30 minutes — and especially under 10 minutes — you're looking at a high-filler, low-active-content product.
This isn't proprietary or controversial. It's a standard interfacial-stability test. If a supplier resists running it with you, that's information by itself. We're happy to run the test live, on video, or send you the protocol with your sample so you can run it on your bench.
Request a FatXcel or GIIOFEED sample with the emulsion test protocol → Contact us
