CELEBRATING 25 EXCITING, FASCINATING YEARS IN ORGANIC HERBS!

May 2007 sees The Organic Herb Trading Company celebrating 25 exciting years of growing, importing and distributing organic herbs and herbal ingredients into the UK market.

Founded by pioneer Mike Brook in 1982 when he started growing organic herbs in a field near his home, the company was originally named Hambleden Herbs, owing to its location in the eponymous, picturesque Thames Valley village adjacent to Hambleden lock.

Soon realizing he couldn’t meet the fast growing demand for pure, unadulterated organic herbs - high in vitality and active ingredients – from his own limited production in the UK, Mike started sourcing from producers abroad; in spite of considerable early difficulties due to the poor availability of organic product at the time, he managed steadily to built up a portfolio of suppliers from around the globe.

As the business expanded, he also moved into prepacked organic herbal teas and culinary spices, and the Hambleden Herbs retail brand were the first organic products of its kind available to UK consumers.

Both strands to the business grew rapidly and now joined by his wife Gaye Donaldson, the company relocated in 1994 to a farm in Somerset where they set up organic herb production, and converted farm buildings to warehouse and office space, where they are still located today.

In February 2000 the company renamed their bulk herb trading division The Organic Herb Trading Company and four years later sold the Hambleden Herbs retail label, in order to concentrate on the core trading business.

This 25 years’ experience in growing, sourcing and processing organic herbs and herbal products have afforded The Organic Herb Trading Company a unique position with which to serve this wonderfully diverse and fascinating market, with a customer base that spreads from cooks and cosmetics to herbal formulators and food manufacturers.

Balancing organic, sustainable and ethical practices with sound commercial management, the company is the leading UK supplier of organic herbal ingredients to the culinary, medicinal and body care markets.

With stocks of over 500 different organic product lines, sourced as far afield as China, India, Sri Lanka, North and South Africa, Australasia, Eastern Europe and North and South America, it has over these many years developed close ties and bonds based on mutual confidence and shared ethics.

Immensely proud of their long-term involvement with these producers, The Organic Herb Trading Company is constantly working to support their supply chain in productive, sustainable and holistic commerce.

However, far from resting on their laurels, the directors and all the staff at their farm and offices, in the rolling hills outside the lovely West Somerset village of Milverton, are determined that the business grows and develops to meet the changing needs of the maturing organic sector.

Only very recently, it has made a considerable investment in machinery, infrastructure and operational skills to ensure it has more than enough capacity to meet increasing customer demand for specialist herb processing – including cutting, powdering and blending.

This continues to ensure that the place of The Organic Herb Trading Company - one of the few pioneer organic companies that remain under the private ownership of its founders - is still firmly in the vanguard of the organic herbal market in the UK.