Light Labs

One of the coolest things about running a testing lab is seeing how hidden factors, like processing or packaging, impact what's really in food. A framework I love is the NOVA scale, which objectively measures food processing. Take an apple: • NOVA 1: Fresh apple • NOVA 2: Pure apple juice concentrate • NOVA 3: Canned applesauce • NOVA 4: Apple-flavored cereals or gummies It's intuitive that nutrients drop sharply by NOVA 4—but something less obvious (and equally concerning) happens too: phthalate contaminants rise dramatically. A study (Buckley et al., 2019) found people who regularly consumed ultra-processed foods had roughly 2x higher levels of phthalates (MCOP) in their urine compared to those eating minimally processed foods. Phthalates quietly enter through: • Plastic tubing (like PVC hoses in dairy) • Flexible plastic packaging • Vinyl gloves and conveyor belts These contaminants never appear on ingredient lists, yet obviously impact finished good purity. Processing clearly matters, and not just nutritionally. Love being able to help solve this at Light Labs, where we work with quality-focused brands and manufacturers to (a) improve their testing workflows and (b) tell an objective story about their products with lab data.

More and more brands are choosing to show—not just tell. We’re proud to partner with LesserEvil as they publish contaminant testing results directly on their product pages, powered by Light Labs. Fast turnaround, rigorous testing, and full transparency. In a space full of marketing claims, this is the new bar: verified, shareable data that consumers can actually see.

We’re proud to partner with Andrea Gomez and the team at David to help them move faster, innovate with confidence, and back every product with real testing. Let’s keep raising the bar on transparency.

Light Labs is live. We’ve quietly been building a new kind of lab — one designed to make testing a growth engine, not just a compliance checkbox. Today, we’re proud to support hundreds of food and supplement brands — including many of the fastest-growing names in baby food, supplements, snacks, and clean-label CPG — who want to back their claims with hard data, share that data with customers, and lead with trust. The food system is broken in ways we can’t see. Heavy metals in baby food. Microplastics in protein powder. Glyphosate in your water bottle. Even the healthiest foods today often lack the nutrients we assume are there. The problem isn’t just contamination — it’s invisibility. Most brands don’t have the data, tools, or infrastructure to know what’s actually in their products, let alone prove it. Consumers are asking harder questions. But testing remains slow, fragmented, and opaque. We built Light Labs to change that: to give brands a testing partner that works at their speed and speaks their language. Light Labs is a modern analytical lab and software platform built for today’s quality leaders: • 3-day turnaround for heavy metals • Testing for heavy metals, glyphosate, PFAS, BPA, microplastics, omega-3s, and more • Clear, actionable reporting internally and customer-facing • Support for regulatory frameworks like Prop 65, AB 899, and beyond But more importantly, we make transparency usable. Brands use Light Labs not just to stay safe, but to drive conversion, strengthen loyalty, and differentiate themselves in a crowded market. We believe every brand should be able to show — not just say — that their products are clean, safe, and nutrient-dense. This is our mission: Bring transparency to the food system.