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 the rigorous organic certification standards set for us by Oregon Tilth Certified Organic .

The combined herbal industry experience of our quality, farm and management team is over 100 years. We have over 50 processes whereby quality is evaluated during every step of the botanical’s 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:

1. Each grower, or vendor, is pre-qualified through a questionnaire and/or visitation to ensure they meet our strict quality standards.
2. 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). Every botanical brought in from outside the farm is purchased on a lot specific pre-ship sample evaluation. Our Team evaluates the herb for vibrancy: how it looks, tastes, smells and product cleanliness.
3. Some botanicals from certain regions of the world that historically have pesticide residue and/or heavy metals are tested prior to purchase.
4. We ensure that the botanical was packaged properly and that the shipment arrived intact and undamaged in any way.
5. 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 inferior product.
6. For every flower and berry shipment that is received (and some herbs depending on the originating source), the contents of up to 30% of the shipment’s boxes, or bags, are opened and spread out onto a table/bin for visual inspection.
7. Every botanical that is received is metal tested using earth magnets.
8. We oftentimes have to further clean a botanical (remove excessive stem or other extraneous material, i.e. 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 here at Pacific Botanicals make every effort to reduce that margin even lower in order to give you the cleanest possible product.