Quality Assurance

Quality is at the heart of everything we do, from the way we grow herbs on our Regenerative Organic Certified® farms to our wildcrafting standards.

Regenerative Organic Certified®

This new certification takes everything we love about organic agriculture and adds to it with more emphasis on soil health, eco-friendly farm operations, and higher social fairness requirements for farmers and workers. Explore the new standards to get an idea of what goes into being a Regenerative Organic Certified® farm:

  • Soil Health: Unlike farms using standard agricultural processes, Regenerative Organic Certified® farms rehabilitate the soil rather than just depleting it. We implement several regenerative farming practices such as healthy crop rotations, reduced tillage, cover cropping, increasing the soil’s organic matter over time, and sequestering carbon underground.
  • Biodiversity: When you’re farming the way we are, the magic is in more than just the plants themselves. Increasing native plant and animal populations is a key benchmark for regenerative certification.
  • Conservation Tillage: We’re also reducing topsoil disturbance by avoiding bare soil conditions. This practice maximizes the total amount of carbon dioxide pulled from our atmosphere by plants over time.
  • Riparian Areas: Several small streams (some seasonal) flow through our farms in Josephine County. We restore wetlands along our creek banks by planting hundreds of trees and shrubs, to keep water temperatures cool and reduce bank erosion.
  • Farmworker Fairness: Operating a Regenerative Organic Certified® farm means we value the entire team’s work and back it up with fair living wages, capacity building, and equal opportunity.
  • Seeds and Planting Stock: While we’re implementing some new practices as a Regenerative Organic Certified® farm, many of our USDA Organic practices remain unchanged. One of which is the use of organic seeds and planting stocks to protect the integrity of our crops. Over 75% of the herbs grown at Pacific Botanicals are grown from seed collected on our farm.

Our Wildcrafting Standards

We respect our wildcrafters and the heritage they bring to our industry. We strive to preserve the legacy of collection practices for gathering plants in wild ecosystems. We only use wildcrafters who adhere to our policies. Here is a list of the criteria we require of our harvesters:

  • Location and Ecological Niche: We seek areas that are free of contamination from roadways, housing, poor water, and air quality. We require a description of the area, slope, direction, and proximity to streambeds.
  • Percentage of Population Harvested: We seek to protect pristine stands of herbs from being over-harvested by determining what percentage of species was harvested and when the area was last harvested, to help allow stands to regenerate for future gathering.
  • Handling Methods: We seek skillful selection with expert knowledge of species. Careful separating, garbling, drying, and cleaning of products ensures herb authenticity and vitality.
  • Consistent and Accurate Record Keeping: Harvest protocol sheets are required which include time of day, temperature, weather conditions, and a description of the area; public or private land, logging conditions, distance from the road, powerlines, and any known history of pesticides or fertilizers for each lot we receive.
  • Personal Guarantee by the Wildcrafter: Each independent wildcrafter must demonstrate an adherence to the highest standards and must personally guarantee that each herb has been ecologically harvested. They must show regard for the integrity of the plant population and environment, and obtain any verification of species required from a botanist that may be necessary.

Grown Without Chemicals

Grown Without Chemicals means that our herbs are sourced from a known and trusted supplier who cultivates the herb without pesticides, herbicides, or any other chemicals. We require these herbs to be grown with the same standards as Certified Organic. Often times, the supplier elects not to become Certified Organic because of expenses associated with the process. We have thoroughly researched these sources and can offer a small selection of these products from trusted sources when we cannot find sufficient Certified Organic or wild-crafted sources. Less than 2% of our products are Grown Without Chemicals.

In-House Quality Control

At Pacific Botanicals you can trust that the daily focus of our entire team is on quality. We all participate in ongoing quality improvements whether it’s from our farm and field workers, processors, packers, or administrative team.

We have a very comprehensive quality control process. First and foremost, all herbs that are grown at Pacific Botanicals follow rigorous Regenerative Organic Certified® standards set by the Regenerative Organic Alliance. We have over 50 processes whereby quality is evaluated during every step of the botanical production (growing, receiving, processing, packing, and shipping). Many of these processes are documented for tracking/traceability purposes.

Our basic quality protocol for non-farm-grown herbs looks like this:

  • Each grower, or vendor, is pre-qualified through a questionnaire and/or visitation to ensure they meet our strict quality standards.
  • We request a lot-specific sample from our vendor, which is then examined by our Quality Control Team. They evaluate the herb for vibrancy: how it looks, tastes, and smells. It is also evaluated for cleanliness (absence of dirt and debris).
  • Some botanicals from certain regions of the world that historically have pesticide residue and/or heavy metals are tested before purchase.
  • We ensure that the botanical was packaged properly and that the shipment arrived intact and undamaged in any way.
  • Every botanical that is received is matched to the approved pre-ship sample. If the botanical/lot does not match the pre-ship sample, a re-evaluation by the Quality team is conducted. Unfortunately, there are times when an entire shipment is rejected and returned to the supplier. We would rather be out of an herb than supply an inferior product.
  • Every flower and berry shipment that is received (and some herbs depending on the originating source) is subject to visual inspection with the boxes or bags opened up and spread onto a table.
  • Every botanical that is received is metal tested using earth magnets.
  • We oftentimes have to further clean a botanical (remove excessive stem or other extraneous material like small rocks) before we can offer it for sale. Many companies allow a margin of 2% extraneous material as an acceptable level for re-packaging and sale. However, we make every effort to reduce that margin even lower to give you the cleanest product possible.