Lactose: export from Canada to ASEAN

Lactose is sold by grade and by particle size, and the grade determines which regulatory and quality regime applies. Food-grade and pharmaceutical-grade lactose are not interchangeable, and pharmaceutical grade carries documentation and facility expectations that food grade does not.

Within each grade, mesh size is the working specification. It governs flow, compressibility and dissolution, so a tabletting application and an infant formula application want different material from the same nominal product.

Canadian lactose is a co-product of cheese and whey processing, which means availability tracks that sector rather than standing alone. Buyers should expect supply to be contracted rather than spot.

State the grade, the mesh and the application when you enquire. If the destination use is pharmaceutical, say so at the outset: it changes the supplier shortlist, not just the price.

Two further points catch buyers new to the ingredient. Lactose is hygroscopic, so storage and transit humidity matter more than for most dry powders, and a specification that is met at load can drift in a hot, humid destination warehouse. And monohydrate and anhydrous forms behave differently in a formulation: if your process assumes one, saying so prevents a substitution that technically meets the grade and fails in the plant.