The most common quality problems with chemicals from India are low assay or strength, too much moisture or impurity, drift in colour or shade between batches, contamination from shared equipment, poor packing, and COAs that do not match the goods. Most of them are preventable with a clear specification and checks before loading.
None of these is unique to India. They appear wherever buyers rely on samples and paperwork without checking the production lot.
The usual problems
- Assay below specification, often because a batch was blended or diluted to meet volume.
- High moisture, which lowers active content and can cause caking or degradation.
- Impurities above limit, including isomers, unreacted raw materials or heavy metals.
- Colour or shade differences between batches, especially in dyes and pigments.
- Cross-contamination from multipurpose reactors that were not cleaned well between products.
- Particle size or flow problems in powders that affect your process.
- Wrong, leaking or damaged packs, and labels that do not match the documents.
- A COA copied from an earlier batch, or issued for a sample rather than the shipment.
Why they happen
Many problems trace back to three causes. The specification was loose, so the plant shipped something that technically passed. The plant changed a raw material or a process step without telling you. Or the goods came from a different plant than the one that made the sample.
The third cause is often a trader switching source. Read telling a chemical trader from a manufacturer for the signs.
How to prevent them
- Write a full specification with test methods, limits and the impurities that matter to you.
- Ask the supplier to notify you before any change in raw material, route or site.
- Have an independent inspector draw samples from the production lot before loading.
- Test the key parameters in an independent lab and compare with the COA.
- Keep a sealed retention sample from every lot.
- Check packs, labels and batch numbers during loading.
Our guides to checking a COA is genuine and what a purchase contract should include go into more detail.
If it still goes wrong
Act quickly. Test retained and arrival samples in the same lab, record the evidence and notify the supplier within the contract's claims period. A clear record turns a dispute into a settlement.
Spotting problems early
Many problems give warning signs before they reach you. A supplier that is slow to send the COA, asks to change the pack at short notice, or offers a new batch number at the last minute may be covering a problem. Results that sit just inside every limit can mean the batch was blended to pass. When you see these signs, ask questions and test more, not less. It is far cheaper to hold a container in India than to reject it at your port.
Next step
We check specifications, supervise sampling and loading and have lots tested before they ship. Book a free sourcing review.