Healthcare practitioners across Australia will be well aware of the importance of sourcing only the purest and safest practitioner-only herbal supplements for their clients. A crucial aspect of ensuring a product is of superior quality is knowing that it has met stringent requirements in regards to its safety and efficacy. For this reason, it’s well worth choosing Australian-manufactured herbal supplements, made by a TGA-licenced manufacturer.
Let’s look at why it’s so vital to ensure that practitioner herbal supplements you recommend to your patients meet Australian safety standards.
No compromises on quality: Choosing TGA-Approved Herbal Supplements
Quality standards for botanical products will vary depending on where you are in the world. Because of this, it may be risky to buy practitioner herbal supplements from overseas, as you can’t be certain of their safety and efficacy. Not every country has the stringent regulations Australia has. In Australia, herbal supplements must meet quality standards set by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). The TGA accreditation requires that products:
- Are accurately labelled
- Are free of harmful contaminants
- Only contain the pharmaceutical substances disclosed on the label
- Are of a potency that is safe for consumers
- Have correct dosage information for Australian consumers.
Therefore, by only choosing Australian-made herbal supplements made by a TGA-licensed manufacturer, you can have more certainty of the quality of the products you are recommending to your patients.
Quality Dry Plant Extracts
Australian healthcare practitioners will often prioritise practitioner-only herbal supplements manufactured in Australia. This helps support their local economy, with the assurance of quality, under the oversight of the world-leading TGA.
PPC Herbs is an example of a company that sells herbal supplements crafted from premium botanical materials. We make our extracts in Australia and use genuine botanical material that is either Trade, Wild Crafted, or Certified Organic (by ACO). The Traditional Herbal Extracts we manufacture are made in a TGA-certified facility, from authenticated botanical materials. We don’t use ingredients reconstituted from imported syrups or powders. In addition, the more than 100 different herbs we use to make our herbal extracts are sourced from the quality starting materials.
Organic Fresh Plant Tinctures
PPC Herbs also collaborates with Marleen Herbs of Tasmania to offer a range of Australian-grown Fresh Plant Tinctures. All Fresh Plant Tinctures use organically grown herbs that have been freshly harvested and steeped in organic ethanol (alcohol) under a TGA licence.
By offering a combination of Fresh Plant Tinctures and Quality Dry Plant Extracts, practitioners are better able to choose the most appropriate treatment for their patients.
Cold Percolation Extraction
The method by which herbal properties are extracted makes a big difference to the efficacy of a product. PPC Herbs’ Traditional Herbal Extracts are manufactured using a cold percolation process. Cold percolation helps to ensure that the integrity of active plant compounds, as well as potency, is preserved.
There are a range of alternatives to cold percolation, for example, drying out a herbal extract, and later, adding liquid. Reconstituted powders, however, can lose a little of their therapeutic benefit, so cold percolation is considered a superior method.
Advantages of cold percolation for traditional extracts:
When making herbal extracts, and in particular, when you need to preserve delicate compounds, cold percolation offers the following advantages:
- Retains Heat-Sensitive Compounds: There are a range of hot extraction methods that are used when making traditional extracts. Whilst these methods may extract compounds, the end product may lose a little of its potency. High temperatures can degrade enzymes, delicate plant ingredients, and volatile oils.
- Improved Flavour & Fragrance: Heat impacts essential oils, natural aromas and flavours of a herb, and therefore, when tinctures and liquid extracts are made using heat, they lose a little of the smell and taste of the herb.
- Minimises Oxidation & Degradation: When exposed to either heat or air, beneficial compounds can break down. Cold percolation in an air-sealed vessel means that oxidation and heat degradation are not risks. This also increases the shelf life of the product.
- Enhanced Potency & Full-Spectrum Extraction: Cold percolation is a thorough process that allows for a steady extraction and a complete transfer of the active compounds in the plant. Due to this, the final product is well-balanced and potent.
Register with PPC Herbs
If you are interested in registering with PPC Herbs, we provide exclusive Practitioner-Only access to Traditional Herbal Extracts and Fresh Plant Tinctures. Visit PPC Herbs to learn more about our high-quality, TGA-licensed products for healthcare practitioners.