Every salt, cement, fertilizer or chemical export shipment from Egypt comes with at least one of three documents:

1. Certificate of Analysis (CoA) — chemical / physical assay of the lot

2. Mill Test Certificate (MTC) — for cement, identical concept but specific to cement standards

3. Pre-shipment Inspection (PSI) — issued by SGS, Intertek, or another third-party inspection agency

For salt, the CoA is the document. For cement, the MTC. For fertilizer, the CoA plus often a soil-fit memo. We will focus here on the salt CoA, but most of this applies to MTCs as well.

The seven things to check

1. ISO 17025 accreditation number

Every laboratory issuing analytical certificates should be accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 (the general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories). The accreditation number should appear on the CoA letterhead, with the issuing body (EGAC in Egypt, UKAS in UK, A2LA in US, DAkkS in Germany, etc.).

If the CoA does not cite an ISO 17025 accreditation, the document carries no third-party verification weight.

2. Scope of accreditation matches the test

A lab can be ISO 17025 accredited for some tests but not others. The accreditation document should be checked against the specific test issued on the CoA. For salt, the relevant tests are usually:

  • NaCl assay (gravimetric or argentometric titration)
  • Moisture (loss on drying at 105 °C)
  • Insoluble matter (acid-insoluble residue)
  • Calcium, magnesium (EDTA titration or AAS)
  • Sulfate (gravimetric or turbidimetric)
  • Heavy metals (AAS or ICP-OES — Pb, As, Cd, Hg)
  • Grain size distribution (sieve analysis)

For food / pharma grade, add iodine, anti-caking content, and microbial counts.

3. Sampling reference

A CoA without a sampling reference is suspect. The CoA should cite how the sample was taken — random pile sampling, conveyor cross-cut, hold-by-hold composite, etc. — and either reference an international sampling standard (e.g. ISO 21359 for salt) or describe the method.

4. Sample ID traceable to lot or batch

The sample reference on the CoA should be traceable to the specific production lot or vessel hold being shipped. A generic "Sample A" is not traceable. A "Lot 2026-04-DAM-04 / Hold 3 composite" is.

5. Date of analysis vs date of loading

The CoA date of analysis should be within 14 days of the loading date. Older CoAs typically signal the assay was done on a different batch and re-printed. If you see a CoA dated 6 months before the loading date, treat it as informational only — not specification confirmation.

6. Signature + technical responsible person

The CoA should be signed by a named individual with their technical role (Lab Manager, Quality Control Officer, etc.). Unsigned CoAs are draft documents; only signed ones are issued.

7. Reporting limits and uncertainty

A real lab reports detection limits ("Pb < 0.1 mg/kg") rather than zeros. Reports of "0 mg/kg Pb" are physically unlikely and usually indicate the lab is not actually measuring heavy metals on that line — they are using a typical-batch placeholder.

The three places counterfeit CoAs fall apart

In several decades of Egyptian commodity export, we have seen the same three counterfeit patterns:

1. Accreditation number that doesn't match the lab name — counterfeiters copy ISO 17025 numbers from real accreditation registries but assign them to fictional labs. Verifying the number against the issuing accreditation body's online registry catches this in 30 seconds.

2. Identical CoAs across multiple shipments — sampling references that are byte-identical across shipments suggest the CoA is template-filled, not assay-based.

3. Assay results that exceed measurement uncertainty — for example, NaCl reported to four decimal places (99.7234%) when the assay method's actual uncertainty is ±0.05%. Real labs don't over-report precision.

How Soker Salt issues CoAs

For every Soker Salt shipment we ship:

  • CoA from an ISO 17025-accredited lab (EGAC-accredited; we can also accept buyer-nominated SGS or Intertek third-party assay at buyer cost)
  • Sample traceability: lot number + vessel hold composite where relevant
  • Analysis date within 7 days of B/L date
  • Signed by Lab Manager
  • Heavy metals reported with detection limits when below limit
  • Grain-size sieve plot when relevant for spec (de-icing, food, pharma)

If you have a destination authority that requires SGS or Bureau Veritas pre-shipment inspection, we coordinate it at buyer cost. We do not white-label assays.