A new European law governing the sale of herbal medicines in the UK has forced a Holme Valley family to re-locate to the other side of the world in order to protect their business. Hilarie Stelfox reports
A HOLME VALLEY family that once lived and worked together is now separated by thousands of miles because of an EU directive, which threatened to destroy their livelihood.
Lesley Robinson, founder of the Little Herbal International company, says new legislation that comes into force next month, will make their business illegal in the UK.
And so, back in January, her daughter Jo Danilo, son-in-law Jan, and grandsons Felix, eight, and Hector, five, emigrated to New Zealand in order to establish a new base for the family’s African herbal remedy company.
Lesley and her husband Glyn, who is a precision engineer, have stayed behind at the former extended-family home – Cloudberry Farm in Dick Edge Lane – to sell the property and find homes for the many animals they keep on their smallholding.
The cause of all their problems is the EU’s Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, which says that all manufactured herbal remedies must be registered with the Medicines and Health Care Regulatory Association.
“But, of course, this process is very expensive,” says Lesley, “and can take up to two years.
“We found that it would cost around £350,000 to register our five products, which is a phenomenal amount for a small business like ours.”
The EU move is designed to regulate the sale of herbal medicines in the UK in order to protect the public against unsubstantiated claims and dangerous products. At the moment sales of unlicensed products are allowed.
However, Lesley, who recently qualified as a clinical herbalist, says the EU directive will have the net effect of removing the vast majority of herbal products from sale, at the same time dramatically restricting consumer choice. “We’re talking about herbs that have been used for hundreds if not thousands of years. Herbal medicines have had the longest trials in human history,” she says.
Because manufacturers of herbal products also have to prove safe usage of their formulations, in Europe, for at least 15 years, Lesley says the directive unfairly penalises herbal remedies from outside the EU, including Chinese herbal medicine. Her own products are made from traditional African remedies, used for generations in the continent but virtually unknown here until relatively recently.
Lesley’s business, founded 12 years ago following a visit to Zimbabwe, has made the headlines on a number of occasions, not least because she was inspired to start selling the remedies after meeting a witch doctor and experiencing traditional African medicine for herself.
National newspapers and magazines, as well as the Examiner, have featured her successes in treating adults and children with serious skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema.
Little Herbal products, says Lesley, are all manufactured in South Africa under the guidance of a qualified pharmacist.
“I have a background in the pharmaceutical industry,” she explained, “so I recognise the need for herbal medicines to be safe and used at a safe dosage.