Is It Legal To Sell Home Made Herbal Remedies Or Do I Have To Get Some Sort Of License? Thanks.?
eg. echinacea tincture or healing balm (calendula, comfrey, st johns wort etc). To friends and people I work with and maybe a small market stall
eg. echinacea tincture or healing balm (calendula, comfrey, st johns wort etc). To friends and people I work with and maybe a small market stall
It depends on how you’re selling it. If you’re selling them to your friends, that’s perfectly fine and you don’t need a license. If it’s at work, you may want to get permission from management, just to make sure it wouldn’t step on anyone’s toes. However, if you want to set up a spot to sell it outside of your personal interactions, you would need a peddler’s license in most cases (or a business license if it were a stable structure you would sell from). Each city and state has different laws when it comes to peddling, so if you wanted to sell door-to-door or on the street, you should check with your local city hall. Some cities have places set up where you can rent a stall and sell your stuff (similar to a swap meet or a big rummage sale setup in a nice indoor setting), so you can also check on that.
Needless to say, be careful how you make your tinctures and balms (which I’m sure you’re doing), and it would be safest to only sell to people you know. If you decided to go into business outside of that, you may want to get testing done so you can prove/guarantee the potency/quality of them for those that may be skeptical. Good luck!
It sounds much too risky to me. Are you sure what concentrations to prepare ? If you are using water or oils do you know how pure they are or how long they might last before they go “off” ? What about containers ? What if someone gets ill after taking some of your remedies and claims it was because of your remedies ? Would you know how to warn people about possible allergies ?
One thing you must avoid is making any claims. If you say ” this will prevent colds”, and a buyer gets a cold, you can find yourself with a claim against you for your untrue claim.
Try getting insurance against such claims; you would probably find that you could not get insurance. Without it, you should not consider such a venture.
Better idea – sell people the herbs, together with suggested recipes. You can put disclaimers on the recipes, saying cures are not guaranteed, beware of adverse reactions – things like that.
However, if you can grow or find eyebright, you can sell it for making eyebright tea, which in many cases really does soothe sore eyes.
You need to get the guidelines called Medicines, Ethics and Practise from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. It has a section in their for ‘Herbalists’ which is a perfectly legitimate and legally recognised job. There are exemptions for herbalists under the Miss-use of Drugs Act and the Medicines Act. You need to be very clear about what you can and can’t do. For example you can’t sell something to cure something. But you can sell something. You do get quite a bit of leeway. If you or not clear then you should take legal advise.
Also read the following: http://www.rpsgb.org/pdfs/scifactsheetherb.pdf