Ethical sourcing & sustainability

We buy from growers and suppliers who can tell us where material actually came from — the country, the region, and in the better cases the farm. A supplier who cannot answer that cannot tell you much about strength or safety either, so provenance is the first thing we ask about and the reason every product page states an origin.

Origin is not a detail, it is chemistry. Thyme from two neighbouring hillsides can produce entirely different oils. Kelp accumulates iodine at levels that shift with the water and the season. The same species grown in two countries can differ enormously in its active constituents.

A large part of the world’s herb supply is gathered by hand, often by women, often in rural communities where that income matters. Shea butter is the clearest example — across West Africa it is produced almost entirely by women, and the trade is a genuine source of independent income.

Where we can buy through cooperatives or fair trade certified routes, we do. Where we cannot yet verify a chain that far back, we say so rather than implying otherwise.

Wildcrafted material is gathered where the plant grows naturally rather than in cultivated rows. Done well it produces excellent material. Done badly it strips a hillside.

The rule we work to is simple: harvesting should leave the population able to recover. That means taking a fraction of a stand rather than clearing it, leaving mature plants to seed, and not returning to the same ground season after season.

Some plants cannot responsibly be taken from the wild at all. Goldenseal is listed on CITES Appendix II after generations of over-collection, and we stock cultivated material only. Wild rhodiola populations are under real pressure, so cultivated stock is the responsible choice. Slippery elm cannot be stripped from a standing tree without killing it.

Where a plant carries a conservation issue, it is stated on that plant’s own page rather than buried here, because that is where it actually matters to the decision you are making.

Orders are packed by hand, which means we can use the right size of packaging for what you actually ordered instead of a standard box with air in it. Outer boxes and paper void fill are recycled and recyclable, and we re-use clean boxes that come in to us rather than flattening them for collection.

Our pouches are the honest weak point. Resealable foil-lined pouches keep dried herbs dry, dark and potent, which is the difference between a herb that works and one that has gone flat in three months — but mixed-material pouches are difficult to recycle kerbside. We are actively looking at mono-material and home-compostable alternatives, and we would rather tell you that plainly than print a leaf on the bag and leave it.

Jars and bottles are glass wherever the product allows, which is genuinely recyclable and re-usable. Rinse and keep them, or put them in your household glass.

Fully recyclable or compostable pouches for the dried herb range. Verified fair trade chains for more of the tropical botanicals. Reducing the number of separate shipments on multi-item orders.

We would rather list these openly than claim a standard we have not reached. If any of it matters to you, ask — we will tell you exactly where a given product stands.