To ensure absolute purity, DVISSA built its own NABL-accredited testing laboratory.
For the first three years, DVISSA relied on third-party laboratories for all its quality testing. It worked — but it was slow, expensive, and created a bottleneck. Every batch had to wait two to three weeks for test results before it could be cleared for sale. During peak harvest season, this delay meant either holding large volumes of unverified stock or risking dispatch before results arrived.
In mid-2021, the decision was made: DVISSA would build its own in-house testing facility. The target was NABL accreditation (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) — the gold standard for analytical labs in India. It took 18 months of construction, equipment procurement, staff hiring, and documentation before the lab passed its NABL assessment in March 2022.
The lab is capable of detecting over 200 potential adulterants and contaminants — including sugar syrups of all common varieties, heavy metals, pesticide residues, antibiotic traces, and moisture content that could indicate premature harvesting. The centrepiece is a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system that can identify the precise sugar composition of any honey sample, making syrup adulteration virtually impossible to hide.
The turnaround time dropped from 2–3 weeks to 48–72 hours. This meant DVISSA could clear batches faster, reduce warehouse holding time, and respond to seasonal peaks without compromising on verification. More importantly, it meant the company could test more samples per batch — not just one representative sample, but multiple samples from different parts of the consignment.
The lab has since expanded its scope. It now tests ghee for adulteration, makhana for pesticide residues, and spices for the addition of artificial colours and fillers. Every product category that DVISSA has launched since 2022 has been vetted through the in-house lab before going on sale. The lab also accepts a small number of external testing requests from other small food producers — a small revenue stream, but more importantly, a way to raise quality standards across the industry.
"We spent ₹1.2 crore building a lab that most companies our size wouldn't dream of owning. We'll spend it again."