August 16, 2024 • 35 mins
This is the fourth in a series about herbal businesses. These videos cover what each kind of herbal business is and what kind of work you’d be doing, what kinds of education and experience you’ll need to get it started, and a few tips to help you along the way.
This video focuses on building a Compounding Herbal Apothecary – but as you’ll hear right up front, part of this now involves avoiding calling it an “apothecary”, because that word is regulated in every state. 😱 (Don’t worry, Katja has a dozen business-naming suggestions to get you started!)
A compounding apothecary (whatever we call it) is someone who makes custom products for clinical herbalists’ clients and ships them out. That way, a clinical herbalist can focus on clinical herbaling, and someone who makes really great medicines can focus on making the blends that each individual client needs! We don’t have to do it all – we can collaborate with each other! 💓
Interested in starting a different kind of business? Check out our episodes on starting an herbal products business, starting an herb shop, and starting a clinical herbalism business.
The courses mentioned in this episode include:
- The Herbal Business Program – which covers every aspect of GMP compliance, as well as every other part of running your business, from getting registered, paying taxes, and getting insurance to building your website and marketing without selling out – even hiring employees!
- The Family Herbalist Program (Materia Medica + Medicine Making)
- Foundations of Phytochemistry
- Fundamentals of Formulation
- The Community Herbalist Program
- Herb-Drug Interaction & Herb Safety
All of our courses include twice weekly live Q&A sessions and you can ask questions in the discussion thread attached to every lesson – we answer them ever day! Plus we have a student community where you can get support from other business herbies too!
If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!!
Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Katya and I'm here at Commonwealth
Holistic Herbalism in Boston,Massachusetts , uh, making this
episode of the HolisticHerbalism Podcast by myself
today because R is out leadinga plant walk. Um, and I wanted
to talk about another type ofherbal business that you could
run. So a little while back, Ihad done a series of episodes
(00:39):
on different kinds of jobs youcould have as an herbalist ,
um, you know, a clinicalherbalist or a product maker or
different things. Um, and soyou can scroll back in the feed
to find the other ones in theseries. And today the business
type that I wanna talk about isa compounding apothecary. Um,
(01:03):
and so there's already a littleproblem with that because we
are not legally allowed to usethe word apothecary anymore.
Um, you can't put it in yourbusiness name, you can't put it
, um, in any like officialrecord. But when we just talk
to each other, we can stillrefer to things as an
(01:24):
apothecary. Um , and you ofcourse can point to the herbs
on your shelves and call thatan apothecary. You just can't
call your business anapothecary. Over the last , um,
handful of years , uh, thepharmaceutical, the pharmacy
industry has , um, done a wholeseries of laws in every state,
(01:47):
and that se it's the same lawthat they just pass it in every
state. Um, and there are wordsthat previously were not
regulated, that now areregulated and apothecary is one
of them. You're not allowed touse the word unless you have a
licensed pharmacist , um, onstaff . Okay, well, so that
(02:09):
part's a little bit of abummer, but we can still,
between us, we can still referto the work that we're doing as
a compounding apothecary. And Iam realizing that I have just
jumped right in to the topic.
Um, and not only that, butjumped right into a tangent of
the topic. Oh my goodness, it'slike the first however many
seconds, and I'm already on atangent. See, it's so much
(02:33):
better when RIN is here. So letme just back up real quick and
give our reclaimer , um, it'sgonna be this super short form
of the reclaimer because eventhough I've said it 231 times,
I have not memorized it. Idon't understand how that's
possible. So the super shortversion of the Reclaimer is we
are not doctors. I'm not adoctor. This is not medical
(02:55):
advice. And also because I'mnot talking about that so much
today as I'm talking aboutbusiness , um, this is some
business advice, but it's notlegal advice. Uh, so, and it is
of course not like 100%complete here. We're talking
about ideas. Um, but don'tworry, I'm gonna give you
resources to get all the way100% complete as we go through,
(03:17):
okay? That was the dumbestreclaimer ever. But here we go.
So, all right . I launchedright into a topic about how
we're no longer allowed to usethe word apothecary. Um, and I
did that even before I reallyexplained what a compounding
apothecary is. So let's dothat. Um, a compounding
(03:39):
apothecary is like a subset ofa products business. You're
still making herbal products,but you're making a very
specific type of herbalproduct. Um, and that is that
you are basically operatinglike a pharmacy. Of course, we
can't use that word either, butyou are , um, like in
(04:02):
communication with clinicalherbalists who are either
working online with theirclients or maybe they work in
person, but they don't have a ,their own apothecary to provide
herbs for their clients. Um,and so you are going to receive
from either the clinician orthe client , um, the formula
(04:24):
that that person is supposed totake. And , um, you are going
to custom blend that formulafor that person as written down
by the herbalist, the clinicalherbalist. So what that means
is that, like normally ,normally when we think about an
(04:46):
herbal products business, we'rethinking about coming up with
formulas and different specificproducts and then carefully
naming them so that they don'tsay like arthritis s you know,
like whatever, all that kind ofstuff. Um, and yes, like it's
important that those productsare , um, really well made and
(05:07):
really potent and , and alsoclever in your formulation, all
that kind of stuff. And then,but the other half of the job
is that you're selling it toindividual people. And so
you're either marketing andselling it online or you are ,
um, like selling it at afarmer's market or something
like that. And there's a wholeepisode specifically about that
business model. But in thiscase, you are not coming up
(05:30):
with your own formulas. You arestalking individual herbs. And
so you would probably bestalking individual dry herbs
and individual tinctures.
Likely you might also stockseveral individual types of sav
that's possible. Um, and all ofit would be set up so that you
(05:54):
could formulate it asrequested. You would not be
inventing the formulas, youwould be formulating on demand
for someone else, and then youwould be sending out the
product to the person whoneeded to receive it. Um, so
some of the nifty things herethat would be different is that
(06:17):
your marketing is very, verydifferent. You're gonna be
marketing directly to clinicalherbalists. So you're marketing
within the industry, industrysounds a little weird, but it's
what we are. Um, instead ofmarketing to individual
customers. So you customerswill be the clients of other
herbalists and that can be alittle bit easier marketing.
(06:40):
Um, it's like a different kindof marketing. Some people like
one, some people like theother. Um, you will still just
like a regular productbusiness, you'll still need to
come up with your packaging.
And it's cool if your packagingis cool and has like some kind
of artistic flair, you'll needlabels. But the labels will
need to be very flexible. Um,like a section of the label
(07:02):
that you can write on inSharpie, or maybe you get a
thermal printer so that you cancustom print the labels and
everything is pre-designed as atemplate except for the part
where you type in the formula.
Um, you will still need to doall the GMP requirements for
your labeling. So all theingredients have to be on the
label, that kind of stuff. Andthen of course you will be
(07:23):
shipping it out. So you'll needto do the like packaging for
the postal service or UPS orwhatever and like actually
getting it out the door. Um,now if you have this kind of
business, you may also have aproduct line with stuff that
you formulate, just like aregular herbal products
(07:44):
business. Um, if you're aclinical herbalist, you not
supposed to have a separateproduct line that you work
with, but if you are makingcustom products for someone
else, there's no problem withcombining that with your own
product line of your ownformulas and stuff. So you
could absolutely do this as ahybrid business if you wanted
(08:08):
to, that would be completelyfine. Now, the management will
be basically the same eitherway. You're still gonna have
inventory to deal with, you'restill gonna make products. The
type of products that you makewill be different, you know,
simples versus formulas andstuff, but you're still gonna
be making products. You'restill gonna have to like stock
tincture bottles and bags fortea and all that kind of stuff.
(08:30):
You're still gonna have to doall the GMP stuff. You're gonna
have to do accounting andsourcing and all that. Um, and
your advertising, although youradvertising will be internal,
like it'll be internal to thecommunity of herbalists as
opposed to out in the realworld. So that kind of stuff
will be basically the same. Um,but, but just, but still, the
(08:53):
sort of day-to-day work isdifferent and it has a lot of
variability. So if you're aperson who doesn't really like
to make exactly the same thingall the time, this could be
really appealing because youget to make different things
all the time. Now, I mentionedGMPA couple of times already.
Um, your labeled GMP is thesame , like all the rules are
(09:13):
the same there. That's nottricky. But some of your
documentation will be just alittle bit different because
when you are making standardproducts, you need a master
record that has like the recipeof everything that you make a
very precise recipe, includingperhaps , um, common
substitutions if you have likeseasonal variation or something
(09:36):
like that. And then you'll havea batch record and that
document just says, okay, wellI made the batch, I followed
the recipe, and this is thedate that I made it, and I
checked all the boxes andeverything's good, and here's
the batch number . Well, thatmakes sense. And you'll still
do that as an apothecarybecause you'll have a batch of
(09:57):
skullcap tincture and thatbatch will be like, what a
gallon of skull count tinctureor whatever. And then you will
use that to formulate for otherpeople. And then eventually
you'll need a new batch ofskullcap tincture. And your
master recipe will be supereasy because it'll be like,
skullcap vodka, we're done, , you know? Um, and,
(10:17):
and so your batch record alsowill be super, super easy. I
got the skullcap, I got thevodka, I'm done. Um, but
that's, you will need one more.
That's not actually enoughbecause you're sending out
these customized products andeach one of them is a micro
batch . So you will needanother set of batch records
(10:39):
for the actual blends. That isnot actually going to be a
problem, because here's thething, you can design the
invoice that goes, or thereceipt that goes to the
customer to fulfill all of therequirements of a batch record.
There's nothing in a batchrecord that would be like weird
(11:00):
if a customer saw it. And youcan just use the order number
as the batch number, likesuper, super easy. So you don't
have to do the work twice. Youare gonna need to send the
customer the information aboutwhat was in that bottle anyway.
It was already gonna be on theinvoice. So all we have to do
is just design the invoice tomake sure that it , that it
fulfills all the needs of thebatch record. And that's not
(11:21):
hard to do. So, okay, sothere's like a few little
adjustments that we would makethat are like a little bit
different than the standard,but that can be an example for
you that like, the adjustmentsare gonna be super easy. It's
not like a huge deal. Alright ?
So hopefully so far thatalready kind of appeals to you.
(11:42):
There are not a lot of peopledoing this kind of business
right now. There are some , um,but as a clinical herbalist who
doesn't want to send things toclients, I'm not good at that
part. I am good at making stuffand if I see a client in person
and I make something and I handit to them, fantastic. But man,
(12:04):
getting it into a box andgetting it to the post office,
I don't know what it is, butthat is a huge block for me.
Um, it never works out. So Idon't try to, to send things to
clients. Um, and instead I havethem buy things from people
that I know directly. Um, butthen it can't be custom
(12:27):
formulated the way I want it .
So this whole thing of havingthese custom blenders who will
ship stuff is amazing. It worksgreat for the clinical
herbalist, it works great forthe clients. It is great all
around. So I hope that some ofyou already, even though I'm
(12:49):
not done yet, already arethinking , uh, that sounds like
a job I would love doing. Ireally wanna do that because
like I said, there's a verysmall number of people doing
this. I don't know, the numberis like 10, I , it's , it's not
a big number is what I'msaying, of people doing this
that are really doing it. Um,and they'll ship it anywhere
and whatever. So , uh, so weneed people doing this is what
(13:13):
I'm saying. Okay ? So let'shave one piece of advice for
you if you're gonna do thisjob. And I think the single
most important thing about thiskind of business is that you
need to have super effective,very potent herbs and herbal
(13:35):
extracts. Um, because if someclinical herbalist sends you a
formula and then you make itand ship it to the client and
the clinical herbalist expectsa certain result and the client
expects a certain result andthat result is reasonable, it's
not like there's no mismatch inlike the wrong herbs were
(13:56):
chosen or something like that.
It's a reasonable expectation,but your herbs weren't really
great , um, and like yourextracts weren't super potent
and really good, then that'sgonna be the wink weak link in
the chain and that's gonna hurtyour reputation of course. Um,
but also it's gonna hurt theclient because they're not
gonna get the results thatthey're expecting. And it's
(14:18):
gonna hurt the clinicalherbalists too, because now the
client's not gonna trust theclinical herbalist, right? So,
so what that, what that allboils down to is that the
number one most important thingis that you make really good
medicine. Your medicine is allsimple. It's because you're
gonna formulate what was askedfor, okay? And if they ask for
(14:40):
something that wasn't going towork to begin with, well that's
not on you. Um, though youalways could consult a little,
you know, regular pharmacistsdo that with doctors too.
Sometimes they say, Hey, thisperson's already on this drug
and you want them to be on thatdrug, and that's actually not
an awesome idea. Maybe weshould think of something
different. Um, well you coulddo the same thing too. You
(15:01):
wouldn't necessarily have theclient's whole health history
and all that kind of stuff, butif a formula came in and you
were like, Hmm , that formuladoesn't make a lot of sense.
There's no reason that youcan't like email the clinical
herbalist and be like, is this,is this what you actually
meant? Was there like any kindamistake here? I'm not, I've
never seen these put together.
You know, something like that.
Like you can become a , like adouble check or like a safety
(15:27):
net for the clinical herbaliststoo, which is a cool way for
them to um, like develop moretrust in you . But the really
most important thing is thatyour medicine is strong and
effective. So that's gonna meanthat the herbs that you source
have to be really high quality.
Whether you are sourcing themfrom local farms, whether
(15:48):
you're getting them frommountain rose herbs, whether
you are growing them yourselfor wildcrafting them ethically
and sustainably yourself. Um,whatever your method is for
getting the herbs, they have tobe really good. And it would be
better to run out of somethingthan to have , than to like
(16:09):
settle for low quality. Itwould be better for you to be
like, oh dear, clinicalherbalist, I actually don't
have any skull cap in stockright now because the skull cap
that I received wasunacceptable quality. And I
don't want to give your clientssomething that isn't high
quality, but I do have passionflour and I have chamomile . I
(16:30):
could substitute the two ofthose in for skull cap . Um ,
but I wanna check with youfirst that that would meet your
requirements. You know,something like that. As a
clinical herbalist, I wouldlove hearing that from , um, a
, a person who is a compoundingapotheker. Um , even though we
would not say that legally, ofcourse. Um , but I would love
(16:51):
hearing that. I would lovehearing somebody say, actually
I'm out of that because Icouldn't find good enough
quality. I'll have some when Ican get it, but I've got these
other things that we couldsubstitute instead. I'd be
thrilled. So don't, don't feellike you need to sacrifice
quality just so that you haveit on the shelf. Put the
(17:12):
quality like as the mostimportant priority. Um, and
then the second thing is thatyour extraction skills must
also be very, very good. Sothis is gonna mean that you
need to have developed a realfeel for which herbs you want
to ex to tincture fresh becausethat gets you higher quality.
(17:34):
You get a better tincture thatway versus which herbs you
prefer to tincture dry becausethat gets you the better
tincture. And sometimes thereare guidelines for this and
sometimes it is a kind of , um,like you've t tasted it so many
times and you've tried it bothways and you've really
developed a strong preferencefor the, the potency of one way
(17:57):
or the other. And if you areharvesting or receiving fresh
herbs and you are going to drythem for tea, then also your
drying skills have to bereally, really good. Like you
have to have a good dehydrator.
Um, you can get good dehydratorfor not an arm and a leg like
for a hundred dollars, which isnot cheap. But like if you're
doing this as a business, likeyou could be in that range and
(18:19):
still have like a good qualityproduct. It doesn't have to be
like the, the shining silverwhatever. Um, but just your end
result has to be high, highquality, good color, good
flavor, good, good smell,alright ? But then the fun
(18:40):
thing here is that maybe youhave never really had quite the
creative flare for formulation.
And so you make amazing qualityextractions and amazing quality
dried herbs. But then you go toformulate and it's like, hmm ,
that worked really great but itdidn't taste awesome. But
(19:04):
that's enough for you. Like,that's actually enough for me.
I just take stuff. Uh , I likemy tea to taste good, but like
I don't spend a lot of timemaking like artisanal recipes.
Um, once in a while I reallywork at something until I get
it to be like so delightful.
But most of the time I'm kindof in a hurry because of the
(19:24):
next client or the next classto teach. And so I'm just like,
Hey, this formula is gonna workgreat, and if it doesn't taste
fantastic, that's also fine. Soif that is you, then this is a
great business model for youbecause you don't have to have
like that as a strength. Likecoming up with really creative
artisanal formulas, thatdoesn't have to be your
(19:47):
strength. Your strength is verypotent, very effective
extraction or drying of theherbs and having them at a
really high quality. Um, yes,excellent. Alright . And I mean
that's, that's the job. Justmaking sure that you're
stocking stuff, making surethat you're in regular
(20:09):
communication with yourclinical herbalists, making
sure that you're gettingeverything out to the clients
in a speedy manner that youhave kind of like a system for
making it speedy. 'cause ofcourse they just got all their
protocol, they're anxious toget started on it. Like, so you
really wanna get that turnedaround pretty fast. Um, and,
and that would be not only alovely way to spend your days,
(20:34):
but a lovely way to be inservice to the community.
People get really annoyed aboutthe GMP stuff, especially the
part that says if you seeclients, you're not supposed to
make products. Now, right nowif you see clients, you are
still allowed to customformulate for your clients, but
(20:54):
a lot of us don't eitherbecause it's very expensive to
keep a whole apothecary, it's awhole different kind of
business expense or because um,it just, there just isn't time
to be sending it all out. But alot of people kind of really
have a bug about the GMPregulation that you like also
(21:15):
can't have a product line. AndI think it's awesome actually
because I think that it isopening up space in our
community for more people to domore parts of the work, which
means that we are freer to divedeep into the part that we're
really good at and rely on eachother for the other parts. None
(21:42):
of us has to do it all byourselves. If I cannot get
myself to the post office in atimely manner, I don't have to
do that. I don't have to likehate it literally and be mad at
myself that I said I can'tbelieve I told them I would
send this. I hate going to thepost office. You know, actually
I love the postal service. Ilove them. I just getting there
(22:02):
is a real pain in my butt. ButI just want you to know I love
the postal service . They'regreat. Okay? Um, so anyway, I
think that this, thisinterdependency is first of all
important. We can't all doeverything ourselves. Um, and I
(22:24):
think that it is cer it wascertainly not like the intent
of the FDA and the FTC whenthey created the GMP
regulations. They did have anintent and that intent was um,
you know, people should haveproducts they can trust. People
should have products that don'thave allergens in them that
they don't know about. Peopleshould have products that don't
(22:44):
have cat hair in them. Youknow, like, which, you know, my
cats are always all over theplace. You wouldn't want
products at it . Well this isthe home stash anyway, but you,
you wouldn't want products. Nowwhen we had our whole big space
with the clinical space and theschool space and everything
before Covid , obviously therewere not pets there .
(23:05):
So there was never any risk ofcat hair in the public facing
herbs. But anytime I post ourcats or our dog on the
internet, most people are like,I love and some people are
like, that's so dirty. It's notGMP compliant. Yeah, it's my
house, it's fine. But it's justone more reason that I don't
wanna be sending things out topeople. 'cause I don't wanna
keep a whole separateeverything that is not where my
(23:28):
cats are. My point is they werejust trying to keep people safe
from cat hair and allergens andwhatever else. But the like
side effect of that is actuallymore space to have a more
vibrant, more interdependent,more connected community of
(23:50):
herbalists. And I think that isamazing. Alright , okay , so
what are you going to need toknow to do the job and how are
you going to learn that? So youare gonna need to know , um,
all the herbs themselves and ifyou're going to be growing them
or sustainably and ethicallywildcrafting them or , um, what
(24:15):
any other method of receivingthose herbs that doesn't
include a label that says whatthey are. Then of course your
plant identification skills aregonna have to be really good as
well. Um, and you're gonna haveto be very good at making the
products. And then when youblend things, you will , you
will need to be good atblending precisely, you know,
(24:37):
so you're gonna go, you'll havea form for them and you'll tell
them what they expect. If youwork in parts or if you work in
milligrams or if you work inwhatever, you can choose that.
And then you can tell yourclinical herbalist how you
wanna receive the formulas. Butyou will need to , um, like
faithfully produce the formulathat they give you. Um, and so
(25:02):
that might mean like beingcomfortable with a scale if
you're working with grams orbeing comfortable with like
measuring all the millilitersand all that kind of thing.
It's not hard to do, but youknow, when you're just making
it for yourself, you just kindof eyeball it and that's fine.
Okay? And you'll need to knowthe GMP, you'll need all the
business administration stuff.
(25:23):
So that's gonna be like yourwebsite and your taxes and
registering and your marketing,although your marketing will be
a little easier because it'sjust to other herbalist. Um,
and if you aren't good atdesign, that's okay, but you
will at least need to have someideas for what you like so that
(25:44):
a designer that you work withis going to have an easier time
producing what it is that youwanna see on your labels and as
a logo and stuff like that. Um,okay. And then obviously you
might know all that stuffalready. You might have all
that knowledge right now.
That's cool. Um, but if not ,uh, we can help you do that. So
(26:09):
our programs and like thecourses that you would take to
be proficient in doing thiswork , uh, would start with the
family herbalist program thatwill teach you more than a
hundred herbs and it's like themost common and also safest
herbs and , uh, more than 52ways of how to make things with
(26:31):
them. So, you know, tincturesand tea and stuff like that of
course, but, but treats,lozenges, SAPs, oh, you know, I
was talking about SAPs. So youcan just like making tincture
where you make like yourskullcap tincture and your
passion flower tincture andyour chamomile tincture. And
then one day somebody asks forall three. So you blend a
little bit of each onetogether, right? You can do
(26:52):
that with SAPs also. You canhave a big thing of Kula sab
and a big thing of plantain sapand a big thing of some kind of
warming thing and whatever. Um,and then all you have to do is
heat it up just very gently.
Um, it doesn't even have to beall the way to liquid, just
like, hmm , like very melty icecream kind of melty , uh, and
(27:14):
stir it up and then let itharden up again. And that's
very quick to do. You can do itin one of those little mini
personal crockpot things. Um,so, so that is also something
that you could do. You could,you could make lozenges, you
could make little herbal pills,you know, that's like an old, a
very old style of working withherbs instead of capsules
(27:36):
before we invented capsules.
Um, but that's, they're legit.
You can do that. You couldencapsulate things yourself.
You could, you could even offerherbal treats as an option ,
um, in our mess and makingcourse. We have like cookie
recipes and um, infused wineand uh , truffles and all
(27:59):
different kinds, oh, hotchocolates and stuff . So like
there's no reason that youcan't also offer those things.
Um, clinical herbalist would bethrilled if you had that oppor
that ability to offer thatbecause it's so good to give
people something delightful astheir medicine, right? Okay. So
(28:19):
learn all the herbs, learn allthe different ways to turn them
into things so that you candecide which ones you wanna
offer. All of that is in thefamily herbalist program. You
will probably also really wantto have the phyto chemistry
course as well, because ifyou're gonna do high potency
(28:39):
extractions, it's gonna beimportant to understand like,
hmm , is this, like for thisherb I'm trying to get these
particular constituents andthey come out best in alcohol,
but even better if I add alittle vinegar so that I,
because that acidity helps drawsome of the constituents out,
(29:00):
whatever. So like, if you'veever thought about those kinds
of things, that's vitalchemistry. Um, and so the vital
chemistry course would reallyhelp you in terms of increasing
the potency of your , um,products. And then the, the
Herbal Business program. 'causethat's where you're gonna learn
(29:20):
all of the GMP, all of themarketing, how to build your
website. Um , now for, for yourwebsite, if you did this kind
of business, you might want afew extra things that most
people wouldn't have on theirwebsite. You might want some
form submissions so that youdon't have to have 10 million
emails from different people.
(29:42):
They could just go to thisexact form, they could put it
all in and then you would getit formatted exactly the way
you want it , um, so that youcan very easily just check
everything off and then c turnthat into an , into a receipt
and then preto you're done. Uh,so that needs a little bit of
(30:02):
extra website configuration,but it's not hard to do. And I
can help you do that. That's noproblem. Um, and you'll need
all your marketing stuff. Did Isay that already? Your
marketing stuff. So you'regonna market to the clinical
herbalist, all that stuff. Oh,how to do your labels, what
kind of printers are best or doyou wanna like, have them
(30:22):
pre-printed and write on themor do you want a thermal
printer? All the differentthings. Um, and everything you
need about the kitchenregulations, you'll need
commercial kitchen space. Um,but that's actually, people get
really stressed out aboutcommercial kitchen space. And
(30:43):
everybody I've known has beenlike, actually once I finally
sat down, it was so much easierthan I thought. There are so
many resources to help you withcommercial kitchen space and
not a hundred percent of thetime, but often you might even
be able to find commercialkitchen space near you that,
that you can use for free orvery low cost . Um, yes, so,
(31:06):
okay, all that kind of stuff.
All of the nitty grittybusiness stuff, all that is in
the herbal business program.
And I love the overall businessprogram. I love it because I
love seeing all of everyone'sideas and I would love seeing
them progress and then actuallycome into being. But I love it
for you because you canliterally ask me any question
(31:30):
you can ask them at live q anda. You can ask them in the, in
the private community, we havea double private business
community, like it's a privatesection of our private student
community for everybody in thebusiness program so that
everybody in the businessprogram , um, signs a code of
ethics so you don't have toworry about your intellectual
property. All of that is likeeverybody agrees that
(31:52):
everybody's gonna respecteverybody else's formulas and
everything else. So that meansthat you can be asking
questions in this space and getresponses from me, but also
from everybody else. And Ithink that's pretty cool. Um,
or you can just put a questionright on every single lesson of
the course has like, you canjust type the question while
you're watching the video. Ianswer all of them usually
(32:14):
within 24 hours. Sometimes it's30 hours, y'all occasionally
that happens. But I'm the onewho answers them all. Um, we do
have helpers who , um, Kentonand Emmy and of course also Rin
, um, who answer questions inall the other courses. But I
selfishly keep all the herbalbusiness questions all for
myself 'cause it's my favoritething I love. I just love
(32:36):
seeing what everyone is doing.
Um, so great. And then, okay,so that's it. Family herbalist
program, probably also PhytoChem and then the Herbal
Business program. And you mightalso want the community
herbalist program or theclinical herbalist program or,
(32:57):
or herb drug interactions andherb safety. Those are all
things that could benefit you,but that you won't actually
need to do this job because youwon't necessarily have to do
the herb drugs interactionthing because you won't have
the list of the client's drugs,the clin , the clinical
herbalist already did that partfor you. So I think it's great
(33:20):
for everybody to learn thatstuff. Just anybody who likes
herbs and is working withherbs, it's just good to know,
but you are not going to needit to be able to do your job
successfully. Um , alright , sothat is the life of a
compounding apothecary person.
Um, and I hope that some of youthink that this sounds fun
(33:44):
because I would like there tobe more of you out there. Also,
I try to maintain a list of allof the compounding
apothecaries. So if you decidethat you wanna do this, please
let me know. Um, or if you'relistening to this and you're
like, Hey, that's my job. Ihave that already and you have
not already talked to me , um,then please send me an email
(34:08):
and let me know so that I canlet our clinical students know
about you. Um, yes. Excellent.
So I guess that is the end ofthis episode of the podcast and
this is where Ryn would say,take care of yourselves and
take care of each other anddrink some tea. And so I'm
going to say that too. Drinksome tea , um, and all the
(34:29):
other parts also. And we willbe back soon with another
episode of the HolisticHerbalism Podcast together. It
just happens that he made thelast episode without me 'cause
I was doing a thing and now Imade one without him 'cause
he's doing a thing. And don'tworry, we'll be together again
very soon. Um, and until then,thanks for listening. And don't
(34:53):
forget that they still like it.
If you write the review of the,you know, put the little stars
and say why you like it andwhatever. The algorithms still
want people to do that, and itdoes help other people find the
podcast. So if you're stilllistening right now, probably
you like the podcast. And ifyou haven't already rate and
(35:14):
review all and all that stuff,then hey, just do it real
quick. It's pretty fast and wewould appreciate it. But also
other people out in the worldwho find us because of your
review, we'll also appreciateit. All right , everybody.
Bye-Bye .
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Katya and I'm here at Commonwealth
Holistic Herbalism in Boston,Massachusetts , uh, making this
episode of the HolisticHerbalism Podcast by myself
today because R is out leadinga plant walk. Um, and I wanted
to talk about another type ofherbal business that you could
run. So a little while back, Ihad done a series of episodes
(00:39):
on different kinds of jobs youcould have as an herbalist ,
um, you know, a clinicalherbalist or a product maker or
different things. Um, and soyou can scroll back in the feed
to find the other ones in theseries. And today the business
type that I wanna talk about isa compounding apothecary. Um,
(01:03):
and so there's already a littleproblem with that because we
are not legally allowed to usethe word apothecary anymore.
Um, you can't put it in yourbusiness name, you can't put it
, um, in any like officialrecord. But when we just talk
to each other, we can stillrefer to things as an
(01:24):
apothecary. Um , and you ofcourse can point to the herbs
on your shelves and call thatan apothecary. You just can't
call your business anapothecary. Over the last , um,
handful of years , uh, thepharmaceutical, the pharmacy
industry has , um, done a wholeseries of laws in every state,
(01:47):
and that se it's the same lawthat they just pass it in every
state. Um, and there are wordsthat previously were not
regulated, that now areregulated and apothecary is one
of them. You're not allowed touse the word unless you have a
licensed pharmacist , um, onstaff . Okay, well, so that
(02:09):
part's a little bit of abummer, but we can still,
between us, we can still referto the work that we're doing as
a compounding apothecary. And Iam realizing that I have just
jumped right in to the topic.
Um, and not only that, butjumped right into a tangent of
the topic. Oh my goodness, it'slike the first however many
seconds, and I'm already on atangent. See, it's so much
(02:33):
better when RIN is here. So letme just back up real quick and
give our reclaimer , um, it'sgonna be this super short form
of the reclaimer because eventhough I've said it 231 times,
I have not memorized it. Idon't understand how that's
possible. So the super shortversion of the Reclaimer is we
are not doctors. I'm not adoctor. This is not medical
(02:55):
advice. And also because I'mnot talking about that so much
today as I'm talking aboutbusiness , um, this is some
business advice, but it's notlegal advice. Uh, so, and it is
of course not like 100%complete here. We're talking
about ideas. Um, but don'tworry, I'm gonna give you
resources to get all the way100% complete as we go through,
(03:17):
okay? That was the dumbestreclaimer ever. But here we go.
So, all right . I launchedright into a topic about how
we're no longer allowed to usethe word apothecary. Um, and I
did that even before I reallyexplained what a compounding
apothecary is. So let's dothat. Um, a compounding
(03:39):
apothecary is like a subset ofa products business. You're
still making herbal products,but you're making a very
specific type of herbalproduct. Um, and that is that
you are basically operatinglike a pharmacy. Of course, we
can't use that word either, butyou are , um, like in
(04:02):
communication with clinicalherbalists who are either
working online with theirclients or maybe they work in
person, but they don't have a ,their own apothecary to provide
herbs for their clients. Um,and so you are going to receive
from either the clinician orthe client , um, the formula
(04:24):
that that person is supposed totake. And , um, you are going
to custom blend that formulafor that person as written down
by the herbalist, the clinicalherbalist. So what that means
is that, like normally ,normally when we think about an
(04:46):
herbal products business, we'rethinking about coming up with
formulas and different specificproducts and then carefully
naming them so that they don'tsay like arthritis s you know,
like whatever, all that kind ofstuff. Um, and yes, like it's
important that those productsare , um, really well made and
(05:07):
really potent and , and alsoclever in your formulation, all
that kind of stuff. And then,but the other half of the job
is that you're selling it toindividual people. And so
you're either marketing andselling it online or you are ,
um, like selling it at afarmer's market or something
like that. And there's a wholeepisode specifically about that
business model. But in thiscase, you are not coming up
(05:30):
with your own formulas. You arestalking individual herbs. And
so you would probably bestalking individual dry herbs
and individual tinctures.
Likely you might also stockseveral individual types of sav
that's possible. Um, and all ofit would be set up so that you
(05:54):
could formulate it asrequested. You would not be
inventing the formulas, youwould be formulating on demand
for someone else, and then youwould be sending out the
product to the person whoneeded to receive it. Um, so
some of the nifty things herethat would be different is that
(06:17):
your marketing is very, verydifferent. You're gonna be
marketing directly to clinicalherbalists. So you're marketing
within the industry, industrysounds a little weird, but it's
what we are. Um, instead ofmarketing to individual
customers. So you customerswill be the clients of other
herbalists and that can be alittle bit easier marketing.
(06:40):
Um, it's like a different kindof marketing. Some people like
one, some people like theother. Um, you will still just
like a regular productbusiness, you'll still need to
come up with your packaging.
And it's cool if your packagingis cool and has like some kind
of artistic flair, you'll needlabels. But the labels will
need to be very flexible. Um,like a section of the label
(07:02):
that you can write on inSharpie, or maybe you get a
thermal printer so that you cancustom print the labels and
everything is pre-designed as atemplate except for the part
where you type in the formula.
Um, you will still need to doall the GMP requirements for
your labeling. So all theingredients have to be on the
label, that kind of stuff. Andthen of course you will be
(07:23):
shipping it out. So you'll needto do the like packaging for
the postal service or UPS orwhatever and like actually
getting it out the door. Um,now if you have this kind of
business, you may also have aproduct line with stuff that
you formulate, just like aregular herbal products
(07:44):
business. Um, if you're aclinical herbalist, you not
supposed to have a separateproduct line that you work
with, but if you are makingcustom products for someone
else, there's no problem withcombining that with your own
product line of your ownformulas and stuff. So you
could absolutely do this as ahybrid business if you wanted
(08:08):
to, that would be completelyfine. Now, the management will
be basically the same eitherway. You're still gonna have
inventory to deal with, you'restill gonna make products. The
type of products that you makewill be different, you know,
simples versus formulas andstuff, but you're still gonna
be making products. You'restill gonna have to like stock
tincture bottles and bags fortea and all that kind of stuff.
(08:30):
You're still gonna have to doall the GMP stuff. You're gonna
have to do accounting andsourcing and all that. Um, and
your advertising, although youradvertising will be internal,
like it'll be internal to thecommunity of herbalists as
opposed to out in the realworld. So that kind of stuff
will be basically the same. Um,but, but just, but still, the
(08:53):
sort of day-to-day work isdifferent and it has a lot of
variability. So if you're aperson who doesn't really like
to make exactly the same thingall the time, this could be
really appealing because youget to make different things
all the time. Now, I mentionedGMPA couple of times already.
Um, your labeled GMP is thesame , like all the rules are
(09:13):
the same there. That's nottricky. But some of your
documentation will be just alittle bit different because
when you are making standardproducts, you need a master
record that has like the recipeof everything that you make a
very precise recipe, includingperhaps , um, common
substitutions if you have likeseasonal variation or something
(09:36):
like that. And then you'll havea batch record and that
document just says, okay, wellI made the batch, I followed
the recipe, and this is thedate that I made it, and I
checked all the boxes andeverything's good, and here's
the batch number . Well, thatmakes sense. And you'll still
do that as an apothecarybecause you'll have a batch of
(09:57):
skullcap tincture and thatbatch will be like, what a
gallon of skull count tinctureor whatever. And then you will
use that to formulate for otherpeople. And then eventually
you'll need a new batch ofskullcap tincture. And your
master recipe will be supereasy because it'll be like,
skullcap vodka, we're done,
(10:17):
and so your batch record alsowill be super, super easy. I
got the skullcap, I got thevodka, I'm done. Um, but
that's, you will need one more.
That's not actually enoughbecause you're sending out
these customized products andeach one of them is a micro
batch . So you will needanother set of batch records
(10:39):
for the actual blends. That isnot actually going to be a
problem, because here's thething, you can design the
invoice that goes, or thereceipt that goes to the
customer to fulfill all of therequirements of a batch record.
There's nothing in a batchrecord that would be like weird
(11:00):
if a customer saw it. And youcan just use the order number
as the batch number, likesuper, super easy. So you don't
have to do the work twice. Youare gonna need to send the
customer the information aboutwhat was in that bottle anyway.
It was already gonna be on theinvoice. So all we have to do
is just design the invoice tomake sure that it , that it
fulfills all the needs of thebatch record. And that's not
(11:21):
hard to do. So, okay, sothere's like a few little
adjustments that we would makethat are like a little bit
different than the standard,but that can be an example for
you that like, the adjustmentsare gonna be super easy. It's
not like a huge deal. Alright ?
So hopefully so far thatalready kind of appeals to you.
(11:42):
There are not a lot of peopledoing this kind of business
right now. There are some , um,but as a clinical herbalist who
doesn't want to send things toclients, I'm not good at that
part. I am good at making stuffand if I see a client in person
and I make something and I handit to them, fantastic. But man,
(12:04):
getting it into a box andgetting it to the post office,
I don't know what it is, butthat is a huge block for me.
Um, it never works out. So Idon't try to, to send things to
clients. Um, and instead I havethem buy things from people
that I know directly. Um, butthen it can't be custom
(12:27):
formulated the way I want it .
So this whole thing of havingthese custom blenders who will
ship stuff is amazing. It worksgreat for the clinical
herbalist, it works great forthe clients. It is great all
around. So I hope that some ofyou already, even though I'm
(12:49):
not done yet, already arethinking , uh, that sounds like
a job I would love doing. Ireally wanna do that because
like I said, there's a verysmall number of people doing
this. I don't know, the numberis like 10, I , it's , it's not
a big number is what I'msaying, of people doing this
that are really doing it. Um,and they'll ship it anywhere
and whatever. So , uh, so weneed people doing this is what
(13:13):
I'm saying. Okay ? So let'shave one piece of advice for
you if you're gonna do thisjob. And I think the single
most important thing about thiskind of business is that you
need to have super effective,very potent herbs and herbal
(13:35):
extracts. Um, because if someclinical herbalist sends you a
formula and then you make itand ship it to the client and
the clinical herbalist expectsa certain result and the client
expects a certain result andthat result is reasonable, it's
not like there's no mismatch inlike the wrong herbs were
(13:56):
chosen or something like that.
It's a reasonable expectation,but your herbs weren't really
great , um, and like yourextracts weren't super potent
and really good, then that'sgonna be the wink weak link in
the chain and that's gonna hurtyour reputation of course. Um,
but also it's gonna hurt theclient because they're not
gonna get the results thatthey're expecting. And it's
(14:18):
gonna hurt the clinicalherbalists too, because now the
client's not gonna trust theclinical herbalist, right? So,
so what that, what that allboils down to is that the
number one most important thingis that you make really good
medicine. Your medicine is allsimple. It's because you're
gonna formulate what was askedfor, okay? And if they ask for
(14:40):
something that wasn't going towork to begin with, well that's
not on you. Um, though youalways could consult a little,
you know, regular pharmacistsdo that with doctors too.
Sometimes they say, Hey, thisperson's already on this drug
and you want them to be on thatdrug, and that's actually not
an awesome idea. Maybe weshould think of something
different. Um, well you coulddo the same thing too. You
(15:01):
wouldn't necessarily have theclient's whole health history
and all that kind of stuff, butif a formula came in and you
were like, Hmm , that formuladoesn't make a lot of sense.
There's no reason that youcan't like email the clinical
herbalist and be like, is this,is this what you actually
meant? Was there like any kindamistake here? I'm not, I've
never seen these put together.
You know, something like that.
Like you can become a , like adouble check or like a safety
(15:27):
net for the clinical herbaliststoo, which is a cool way for
them to um, like develop moretrust in you . But the really
most important thing is thatyour medicine is strong and
effective. So that's gonna meanthat the herbs that you source
have to be really high quality.
Whether you are sourcing themfrom local farms, whether
(15:48):
you're getting them frommountain rose herbs, whether
you are growing them yourselfor wildcrafting them ethically
and sustainably yourself. Um,whatever your method is for
getting the herbs, they have tobe really good. And it would be
better to run out of somethingthan to have , than to like
(16:09):
settle for low quality. Itwould be better for you to be
like, oh dear, clinicalherbalist, I actually don't
have any skull cap in stockright now because the skull cap
that I received wasunacceptable quality. And I
don't want to give your clientssomething that isn't high
quality, but I do have passionflour and I have chamomile . I
(16:30):
could substitute the two ofthose in for skull cap . Um ,
but I wanna check with youfirst that that would meet your
requirements. You know,something like that. As a
clinical herbalist, I wouldlove hearing that from , um, a
, a person who is a compoundingapotheker. Um , even though we
would not say that legally, ofcourse. Um , but I would love
(16:51):
hearing that. I would lovehearing somebody say, actually
I'm out of that because Icouldn't find good enough
quality. I'll have some when Ican get it, but I've got these
other things that we couldsubstitute instead. I'd be
thrilled. So don't, don't feellike you need to sacrifice
quality just so that you haveit on the shelf. Put the
(17:12):
quality like as the mostimportant priority. Um, and
then the second thing is thatyour extraction skills must
also be very, very good. Sothis is gonna mean that you
need to have developed a realfeel for which herbs you want
to ex to tincture fresh becausethat gets you higher quality.
(17:34):
You get a better tincture thatway versus which herbs you
prefer to tincture dry becausethat gets you the better
tincture. And sometimes thereare guidelines for this and
sometimes it is a kind of , um,like you've t tasted it so many
times and you've tried it bothways and you've really
developed a strong preferencefor the, the potency of one way
(17:57):
or the other. And if you areharvesting or receiving fresh
herbs and you are going to drythem for tea, then also your
drying skills have to bereally, really good. Like you
have to have a good dehydrator.
Um, you can get good dehydratorfor not an arm and a leg like
for a hundred dollars, which isnot cheap. But like if you're
doing this as a business, likeyou could be in that range and
(18:19):
still have like a good qualityproduct. It doesn't have to be
like the, the shining silverwhatever. Um, but just your end
result has to be high, highquality, good color, good
flavor, good, good smell,alright ? But then the fun
(18:40):
thing here is that maybe youhave never really had quite the
creative flare for formulation.
And so you make amazing qualityextractions and amazing quality
dried herbs. But then you go toformulate and it's like, hmm ,
that worked really great but itdidn't taste awesome. But
(19:04):
that's enough for you. Like,that's actually enough for me.
I just take stuff. Uh , I likemy tea to taste good, but like
I don't spend a lot of timemaking like artisanal recipes.
Um, once in a while I reallywork at something until I get
it to be like so delightful.
But most of the time I'm kindof in a hurry because of the
(19:24):
next client or the next classto teach. And so I'm just like,
Hey, this formula is gonna workgreat, and if it doesn't taste
fantastic, that's also fine. Soif that is you, then this is a
great business model for youbecause you don't have to have
like that as a strength. Likecoming up with really creative
artisanal formulas, thatdoesn't have to be your
(19:47):
strength. Your strength is verypotent, very effective
extraction or drying of theherbs and having them at a
really high quality. Um, yes,excellent. Alright . And I mean
that's, that's the job. Justmaking sure that you're
stocking stuff, making surethat you're in regular
(20:09):
communication with yourclinical herbalists, making
sure that you're gettingeverything out to the clients
in a speedy manner that youhave kind of like a system for
making it speedy. 'cause ofcourse they just got all their
protocol, they're anxious toget started on it. Like, so you
really wanna get that turnedaround pretty fast. Um, and,
and that would be not only alovely way to spend your days,
(20:34):
but a lovely way to be inservice to the community.
People get really annoyed aboutthe GMP stuff, especially the
part that says if you seeclients, you're not supposed to
make products. Now, right nowif you see clients, you are
still allowed to customformulate for your clients, but
(20:54):
a lot of us don't eitherbecause it's very expensive to
keep a whole apothecary, it's awhole different kind of
business expense or because um,it just, there just isn't time
to be sending it all out. But alot of people kind of really
have a bug about the GMPregulation that you like also
(21:15):
can't have a product line. AndI think it's awesome actually
because I think that it isopening up space in our
community for more people to domore parts of the work, which
means that we are freer to divedeep into the part that we're
really good at and rely on eachother for the other parts. None
(21:42):
of us has to do it all byourselves. If I cannot get
myself to the post office in atimely manner, I don't have to
do that. I don't have to likehate it literally and be mad at
myself that I said I can'tbelieve I told them I would
send this. I hate going to thepost office. You know, actually
I love the postal service. Ilove them. I just getting there
(22:02):
is a real pain in my butt. ButI just want you to know I love
the postal service . They'regreat. Okay? Um, so anyway, I
think that this, thisinterdependency is first of all
important. We can't all doeverything ourselves. Um, and I
(22:24):
think that it is cer it wascertainly not like the intent
of the FDA and the FTC whenthey created the GMP
regulations. They did have anintent and that intent was um,
you know, people should haveproducts they can trust. People
should have products that don'thave allergens in them that
they don't know about. Peopleshould have products that don't
(22:44):
have cat hair in them. Youknow, like, which, you know, my
cats are always all over theplace. You wouldn't want
products at it . Well this isthe home stash anyway, but you,
you wouldn't want products. Nowwhen we had our whole big space
with the clinical space and theschool space and everything
before Covid , obviously therewere not pets there
(23:05):
So there was never any risk ofcat hair in the public facing
herbs. But anytime I post ourcats or our dog on the
internet, most people are like,I love and some people are
like, that's so dirty. It's notGMP compliant. Yeah, it's my
house, it's fine. But it's justone more reason that I don't
wanna be sending things out topeople. 'cause I don't wanna
keep a whole separateeverything that is not where my
(23:28):
cats are. My point is they werejust trying to keep people safe
from cat hair and allergens andwhatever else. But the like
side effect of that is actuallymore space to have a more
vibrant, more interdependent,more connected community of
(23:50):
herbalists. And I think that isamazing. Alright , okay , so
what are you going to need toknow to do the job and how are
you going to learn that? So youare gonna need to know , um,
all the herbs themselves and ifyou're going to be growing them
or sustainably and ethicallywildcrafting them or , um, what
(24:15):
any other method of receivingthose herbs that doesn't
include a label that says whatthey are. Then of course your
plant identification skills aregonna have to be really good as
well. Um, and you're gonna haveto be very good at making the
products. And then when youblend things, you will , you
will need to be good atblending precisely, you know,
(24:37):
so you're gonna go, you'll havea form for them and you'll tell
them what they expect. If youwork in parts or if you work in
milligrams or if you work inwhatever, you can choose that.
And then you can tell yourclinical herbalist how you
wanna receive the formulas. Butyou will need to , um, like
faithfully produce the formulathat they give you. Um, and so
(25:02):
that might mean like beingcomfortable with a scale if
you're working with grams orbeing comfortable with like
measuring all the millilitersand all that kind of thing.
It's not hard to do, but youknow, when you're just making
it for yourself, you just kindof eyeball it and that's fine.
Okay? And you'll need to knowthe GMP, you'll need all the
business administration stuff.
(25:23):
So that's gonna be like yourwebsite and your taxes and
registering and your marketing,although your marketing will be
a little easier because it'sjust to other herbalist. Um,
and if you aren't good atdesign, that's okay, but you
will at least need to have someideas for what you like so that
(25:44):
a designer that you work withis going to have an easier time
producing what it is that youwanna see on your labels and as
a logo and stuff like that. Um,okay. And then obviously you
might know all that stuffalready. You might have all
that knowledge right now.
That's cool. Um, but if not ,uh, we can help you do that. So
(26:09):
our programs and like thecourses that you would take to
be proficient in doing thiswork , uh, would start with the
family herbalist program thatwill teach you more than a
hundred herbs and it's like themost common and also safest
herbs and , uh, more than 52ways of how to make things with
(26:31):
them. So, you know, tincturesand tea and stuff like that of
course, but, but treats,lozenges, SAPs, oh, you know, I
was talking about SAPs. So youcan just like making tincture
where you make like yourskullcap tincture and your
passion flower tincture andyour chamomile tincture. And
then one day somebody asks forall three. So you blend a
little bit of each onetogether, right? You can do
(26:52):
that with SAPs also. You canhave a big thing of Kula sab
and a big thing of plantain sapand a big thing of some kind of
warming thing and whatever. Um,and then all you have to do is
heat it up just very gently.
Um, it doesn't even have to beall the way to liquid, just
like, hmm , like very melty icecream kind of melty , uh, and
(27:14):
stir it up and then let itharden up again. And that's
very quick to do. You can do itin one of those little mini
personal crockpot things. Um,so, so that is also something
that you could do. You could,you could make lozenges, you
could make little herbal pills,you know, that's like an old, a
very old style of working withherbs instead of capsules
(27:36):
before we invented capsules.
Um, but that's, they're legit.
You can do that. You couldencapsulate things yourself.
You could, you could even offerherbal treats as an option ,
um, in our mess and makingcourse. We have like cookie
recipes and um, infused wineand uh , truffles and all
(27:59):
different kinds, oh, hotchocolates and stuff . So like
there's no reason that youcan't also offer those things.
Um, clinical herbalist would bethrilled if you had that oppor
that ability to offer thatbecause it's so good to give
people something delightful astheir medicine, right? Okay. So
(28:19):
learn all the herbs, learn allthe different ways to turn them
into things so that you candecide which ones you wanna
offer. All of that is in thefamily herbalist program. You
will probably also really wantto have the phyto chemistry
course as well, because ifyou're gonna do high potency
(28:39):
extractions, it's gonna beimportant to understand like,
hmm , is this, like for thisherb I'm trying to get these
particular constituents andthey come out best in alcohol,
but even better if I add alittle vinegar so that I,
because that acidity helps drawsome of the constituents out,
(29:00):
whatever. So like, if you'veever thought about those kinds
of things, that's vitalchemistry. Um, and so the vital
chemistry course would reallyhelp you in terms of increasing
the potency of your , um,products. And then the, the
Herbal Business program. 'causethat's where you're gonna learn
(29:20):
all of the GMP, all of themarketing, how to build your
website. Um , now for, for yourwebsite, if you did this kind
of business, you might want afew extra things that most
people wouldn't have on theirwebsite. You might want some
form submissions so that youdon't have to have 10 million
emails from different people.
(29:42):
They could just go to thisexact form, they could put it
all in and then you would getit formatted exactly the way
you want it , um, so that youcan very easily just check
everything off and then c turnthat into an , into a receipt
and then preto you're done. Uh,so that needs a little bit of
(30:02):
extra website configuration,but it's not hard to do. And I
can help you do that. That's noproblem. Um, and you'll need
all your marketing stuff. Did Isay that already? Your
marketing stuff. So you'regonna market to the clinical
herbalist, all that stuff. Oh,how to do your labels, what
kind of printers are best or doyou wanna like, have them
(30:22):
pre-printed and write on themor do you want a thermal
printer? All the differentthings. Um, and everything you
need about the kitchenregulations, you'll need
commercial kitchen space. Um,but that's actually, people get
really stressed out aboutcommercial kitchen space. And
(30:43):
everybody I've known has beenlike, actually once I finally
sat down, it was so much easierthan I thought. There are so
many resources to help you withcommercial kitchen space and
not a hundred percent of thetime, but often you might even
be able to find commercialkitchen space near you that,
that you can use for free orvery low cost . Um, yes, so,
(31:06):
okay, all that kind of stuff.
All of the nitty grittybusiness stuff, all that is in
the herbal business program.
And I love the overall businessprogram. I love it because I
love seeing all of everyone'sideas and I would love seeing
them progress and then actuallycome into being. But I love it
for you because you canliterally ask me any question
(31:30):
you can ask them at live q anda. You can ask them in the, in
the private community, we havea double private business
community, like it's a privatesection of our private student
community for everybody in thebusiness program so that
everybody in the businessprogram , um, signs a code of
ethics so you don't have toworry about your intellectual
property. All of that is likeeverybody agrees that
(31:52):
everybody's gonna respecteverybody else's formulas and
everything else. So that meansthat you can be asking
questions in this space and getresponses from me, but also
from everybody else. And Ithink that's pretty cool. Um,
or you can just put a questionright on every single lesson of
the course has like, you canjust type the question while
you're watching the video. Ianswer all of them usually
(32:14):
within 24 hours. Sometimes it's30 hours, y'all occasionally
that happens. But I'm the onewho answers them all. Um, we do
have helpers who , um, Kentonand Emmy and of course also Rin
, um, who answer questions inall the other courses. But I
selfishly keep all the herbalbusiness questions all for
myself 'cause it's my favoritething I love. I just love
(32:36):
seeing what everyone is doing.
Um, so great. And then, okay,so that's it. Family herbalist
program, probably also PhytoChem and then the Herbal
Business program. And you mightalso want the community
herbalist program or theclinical herbalist program or,
(32:57):
or herb drug interactions andherb safety. Those are all
things that could benefit you,but that you won't actually
need to do this job because youwon't necessarily have to do
the herb drugs interactionthing because you won't have
the list of the client's drugs,the clin , the clinical
herbalist already did that partfor you. So I think it's great
(33:20):
for everybody to learn thatstuff. Just anybody who likes
herbs and is working withherbs, it's just good to know,
but you are not going to needit to be able to do your job
successfully. Um , alright , sothat is the life of a
compounding apothecary person.
Um, and I hope that some of youthink that this sounds fun
(33:44):
because I would like there tobe more of you out there. Also,
I try to maintain a list of allof the compounding
apothecaries. So if you decidethat you wanna do this, please
let me know. Um, or if you'relistening to this and you're
like, Hey, that's my job. Ihave that already and you have
not already talked to me , um,then please send me an email
(34:08):
and let me know so that I canlet our clinical students know
about you. Um, yes. Excellent.
So I guess that is the end ofthis episode of the podcast and
this is where Ryn would say,take care of yourselves and
take care of each other anddrink some tea. And so I'm
going to say that too. Drinksome tea , um, and all the
(34:29):
other parts also. And we willbe back soon with another
episode of the HolisticHerbalism Podcast together. It
just happens that he made thelast episode without me 'cause
I was doing a thing and now Imade one without him 'cause
he's doing a thing. And don'tworry, we'll be together again
very soon. Um, and until then,thanks for listening. And don't
(34:53):
forget that they still like it.
If you write the review of the,you know, put the little stars
and say why you like it andwhatever. The algorithms still
want people to do that, and itdoes help other people find the
podcast. So if you're stilllistening right now, probably
you like the podcast. And ifyou haven't already rate and
(35:14):
review all and all that stuff,then hey, just do it real
quick. It's pretty fast and wewould appreciate it. But also
other people out in the worldwho find us because of your
review, we'll also appreciateit. All right , everybody.
Bye-Bye .
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