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Supply Chain Diagram for Irish Organic Herbs:
- Quality herbal products necessitate quality raw herb materials.
- Our herbs are organically certified.
- Certified organic means no to harmful pesticides, herbicides,
GMOs, irradiation
- No to fumigation, synthetic additives and artificial chemical
fertilizers.
- Certified organic means yes to natural ingredients, healthy
soil,
- Yes to genetic diversity, natural landscape and habitats.
- Traceable to Irish farms or overseas farms, where necessary.
- Independently audited under EU Regulation 2092/91.
- Herb production to Good Organic Agricultural Practice Standards.
- New growers from farms in Ireland’s North West pristine
environment.
In 2006 cultivated herbs were harvested for Irish Organic Herbs
on the following farms:
Ted & Kay Mole, Strokestown, Co Roscommon.
Deirdre O Sullivan & Norman Kenny, Carbury, Co Kildare.
Gleann na Smaointe, Permaculture farm, Ballygarvan, Co Cork.
Sean & Imelda Daly, Rathowen, Co Westmeath.
There are additional farms in counties Wicklow, Leitrim and Westmeath
where non cultivated herbs such as Hawthorn, Horse chestnut, Meadowsweet,
Nettle, Elder flowers and so on, are harvested.
Irish Organic Herbs in conjunction with the Western organic network
will train a small number of farmers in the North West to cultivate
organic herbs for the company’s future product needs.
In this manner the Greenbox ecotourist area, in the North West,
with its pristine environment will become the leading centre for
the development of medicinal and aromatic (MAP) production, in Ireland.
The company’s Wholly Organic Herbs products are traceable
to farms overseas. Herbs such as Devils claw and others that are
not possible to produce on a commercial scale in Ireland are obtained
from organic suppliers outside Ireland.
There is an optimum time to harvest the crops, when the spectrum
of desired healing constituents of a particular herb is at a maximum.
An advantage of our small herb poly culture system is that normally
we can carry out multiple harvests at the optimum time, e.g. in
making our fresh Echinacea tincture we may manually harvest the
flowering tops a number of times.
The harvested material is washed in the case of roots and inspected
for foreign matter in the case of leafy crops. Extraneous material
like weeds, soil, etc is disposed of.
A tincture herbal remedy comes about when the healing constituents
have been extracted from the herbs. This is done through either
a fresh or dried herb preparation.
For instance, in order to make a fresh tincture like our Echinacea,
the harvested plant is immediately chopped and then macerated (soaked)
in organically certified ethyl alcohol and water; there is an exact
ratio of herb to alcohol/water solvent as per the reference pharmacopoeia.
The highest standards of quality control is essential at each stage
of the production process; firstly for the starting or raw materials,
then for the partially and completely finished products; there are
sector standards laid down that must be adhered to.
There are a number of QC analyses necessary depending on the end
product; they range from simple identification and quality tests,
like organoleptic tests (smell, color, taste) and microbiological
analyses for bacterial contamination such as ecoli, salmonella,
etc to HPLC analysis verifying the level of active ingredients in
the final product.
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The fresh macerating herbs and the dried herbs are sent for final
processing. The final tincture product consists of the herb, alcohol
and water only.
When the extraction process is complete, the macerated material
is pressed and ready for bottling.
The finished products are sent to our designated wholesalers, the
Natural Medicine Company, Blessington, Co Wicklow and Perrans Distributors
Ltd, Finglas, Dublin 11. The goods are then promptly dispatched
to the retail outlet upon receipt of a purchase order.
Irish Organic Herb products are now found on the shelves of Health
stores and Pharmacies countrywide.
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