Freeze drying keeps everything but the water,
so we start with an organic field.

Fresh herbs and vegetables are mostly water. USDA data puts fresh basil at about 92 g of water per 100 g and parsley at about 88 g. Freeze drying removes nearly all of that water and very little else.

That is the point of the process: the cut, the color and much of the aroma stay with the dry piece. It also means everything else on and in the crop stays with it. A residue that was a trace on a fresh leaf is the same amount of residue on a much lighter dry piece, so per gram it is more concentrated.

Drying does not clean a crop, and freeze drying is not a kill step. What goes into the dryer decides what comes out. For a freeze-dried ingredient, the farming is the first quality control, which is why we grow our herbs and vegetables organically on our own farms. More on the process in our freeze-drying guide.

Our herbs and vegetables are grown under organic rules: no synthetic pesticides and no synthetic fertilizers. Soil fertility is built with organic matter and crop rotation, and pests are managed by the farming system first.

Organic certification also asks for records. Every input that goes on a field is written down, and organic blocks are kept apart from neighboring land by buffer zones. The certifier inspects the farms, the plant and the records, as organic rules require.

Because the farms and the plant are one operation at Lake Naivasha, the same crop is grown, picked, graded and washed, then frozen and dried the same day. It does not change hands between field and dryer, and every lot is traceable from field to pouch: farm, plot, harvest date, dryer run and packing date.

Red and green chili, chives, spring onion, lemongrass, thyme, rosemary, dill, bay, curry leaves, basil, cilantro, parsley, oregano, mint, sage, tarragon, garlic, ginger, onion, tomato and sweet corn are grown under the organic rules on our own farms and certified by Ecocert for USDA Organic and EU Organic. Certificates are on request.

Custom cuts, powders and blends made from these crops carry the same certification. Other crops can be planned and grown on our own farms against your volumes; developed with you, piloted small at the plant, then scaled.

A buyer reading your label sees two things: the ingredient was grown organically, and it was freeze dried rather than dried with heat. Both are plain, checkable statements, and both can sit on the front of the pack or in the ingredient list, such as "organic freeze-dried basil".

Organic labelling rules differ by market and by how much of the recipe is organic. A product that is wholly or mostly organic can make a stronger claim than one where only a few ingredients are organic. Your certifier is the authority on what your finished product may say.

Read about the full range of ingredients or how we keep each lot traceable.