For people wondering about consistency of the product, there was a study done analyzing lyophilized products to determine if the different consistencies had any impact on product quality:
Cake appearance is an important attribute of freeze-dried products, which may or may not be critical with respect to product quality (i.e., safety and efficacy). Striving for "uniform and elegant" cake appearance may continue to remain an important goal during the design and development of a...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The general consensus was this (in a really rough context):
- If the material appears to have been dried by atmospheric conditions vs. a freeze drying process then that would be an indication of an issue.
- Atmospheric conditions, which would look like a "fog" (think like hard water on glassware) or dried material sticking to the sides and look like a collapsed product (or maybe a melting visibility), indicating an issue in the freeze drying process, would be cause for concern.
- None of the current pics I have seen indicate that current flaw in freeze drying. Almost everything looks like cakes/cracked cakes, which is completely normal (maybe some rough shipping, but nothing that should effect the product in a negative use case).