2023 was quite a year! While we worked hard to ensure access to pure, organic ingredients to support health and wellness, the Mountain Rose Herbs team also completed some exciting goals. As we reflect on the last year, we want to share our most notable accomplishments and extend our gratitude to you. We could not have accomplished these things without your incredible support. Here are some of our favorite initiatives from 2023 and a peek at what’s coming up in 2024.
Seed Stewardship Project
We officially launched our new Seed Stewardship Project at the 2023 International Herb Symposium. Working in partnership with United Plant Savers, we envision this project as a solution-oriented way to raise awareness about at-risk plants. We hope that by supplying free seeds to those able to plant them, we can join together to rebuild populations of botanicals that most need our help. When you place an order on our website, you can choose any one seed packet for free. We’ll ship your seeds with your order. If you place multiple orders of regularly priced items, you’ll receive one free seed packet every time!
We celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Mountain Rose Herbs Free Herbalism Project (FHP) in 2023! We created this project to give back to herbalists and our botanical community, and it has evolved into an ongoing series of in-person and Zoom educational events featuring visiting herbalists, how-to workshops, live music, and herbal tea to inspire community engagement and herbal learning free of charge. In honor of this momentous anniversary, we expanded FHP to include a webpage with new experiences, resources, and tools, including a digital content resource library and educational hub!
The Mountain Rose Herbs team published 107 blogs for our herbal community to enjoy and learn from last year. Topics included herbalism, natural hair care, DIY body care, culinary inspiration, sustainability happenings, and more!
These are the newly released blog posts you loved the most in 2023:
In 2023, our podcast hosts—Thomas Dick (Executive Vice President of Mountain Rose Herbs) and Jiling Lin (acupuncturist, herbalist, and our very dear friend)— worked incredibly hard to publish about 50 podcasts with esteemed herbalists like Rosemary Gladstar, Margi Flint, Doug Elliot, jim mcdonald, Adriana Ayales, Mimi Hernandez, Kiva Rose, Rising Appalachia, Christopher Hobbs, and many more. You can listen to all the 2023 episodes on our Herbal Radio webpage.
We created Grants 4 Plants in 2018 to help change-makers who share our values of caring for people while protecting our planet. Every year, we give four $4,000 grants to grassroots organizers, small businesses, herbalists, and nonprofit organizations that give back to their communities. In 2023, we received over 100 applications! The winning projects work to improve accessibility to herbalism and education, teach land management and self-sustainability, address issues of food insecurity, and advocate for the health of mothers and babies.
Our commitment to the best care and cultivation standards includes the hardworking people who grow our herbs and spices, so we maintain comprehensive Fair for Life and For Life certifications. These raise the bar on traditional fair trade certifications by applying fair-for-all principles that ensure human rights and equitable working conditions at every stage in the supply chain. We are proud to report that, in our 2023 audit, we received our highest score to date! More on this coming soon.
Each year, Mountain Rose Herbs offers a free publication chock full of inspirational articles, educational resources, recipes, and our product list. In 2023, we tried a new format, which highlighted our botanical offerings by their attributes and applications rather than in a list format. We included more infographics and visual representations of plants to help our incredible community further their education in a way that spoke to them. Our customers enjoyed this new style and we hope to bring more of that into the new year.
Over the years, many people have wondered when we were going to write a book. We are pleased to say that we did it! We took 30+ years of herbal living and crafting expertise and created our first book, The Mountain Rose Herbs Book of Natural Body Care, published in December 2023 by Timber Press. This book features 68 step-by-step recipes including botanical hair, facial, and lip care; formulations for glowing skin; support for hardworking hands and feet; shower and bath enhancements; and herbal remedies for common ailments. We're so excited for you to see it!
In 2023, we launched some exciting (and long-awaited) products. We added a new bagged organic tea line to satisfy those who want tea on the go or who don't like to fuss with loose leaf. Mountain Rose Herbs' tea sampler sets offer a taste of several flavors so you can discover new favorites without committing to a full size tin. We launched the premium tea line with the artisanal tea drinker and collector in mind.
We also started carrying some new ingredients, including locally sourced organic bee balm, small batches of organic butterfly pea flowers, and our own organic apple cider vinegar made from whole Washington-grown apples.
Our retail store, Mountain Rose Herbs Mercantile, turned seven in 2023! We decided this was the perfect occasion to launch into a remodel and much-needed expansion so we could offer more bulk organic herbs, DIY supplies, and other herbalism essentials. We hosted a 7th Anniversary & Expansion Party on November 3, 2023, which was one for the books!
We are always looking for ways to prioritize our team’s health and wellbeing. We offer alternative commute incentives, paid volunteer time, the EarthShare Giving Back Program, and more. In 2023, we raised the bar even further. We brought in a monthly ergonomic healthcare expert to help our employees keep their bodies pain-free while working. We hosted an epic annual Wellness Fair, offering wellness-oriented information and services, as well as free massages, a catered lunch and drinks, yard games, and tricycle obstacle course races for a day of education and fun. And... drum roll... our biggest news from 2023 is that we achieved our long-term goal of covering 100% of health insurance premiums for our staff! We are pleased to say that our team voted us into the top 25 of the 100 Best Green Companies to Work for in Oregon for the second year in a row.
Supporting our community through financial contributions, in-kind donations, and volunteer hours is a core part of our company culture. Since botanicals are our passion, we give in ways that care for the plants: investing in clean water and healthy soil. In 2023, we focused our giving on local community organizations like Cascadia Wildlands, Beyond Toxics, Friends of Trees, Cascades Raptor Center, and Oregon Wild because we have seen the work they do here in our community over many years, and we know they share our values and goals and act on them in tangible ways.
As you can see, 2023 was a busy year here at Mountain Rose Herbs, and we have even loftier goals for 2024. We will of course continue the programs we started and improved in 2023, and we will be launching a few new ones. This is only a small sneak peek of what's ahead, so please stay tuned for more!
One of our 2024 initiatives is to develop more domestic farm partnerships, particularly with farm partners investing in organic, regenerative farming to support our nation’s soil health and a healthy food supply. You’ll begin to see more domestically sourced Regenerative Organic Certified offerings coming soon!
We are also committing to carrying FairWild-certified offerings in 2024. The FairWild Standard has seven principles and twenty-four criteria addressing three themes: the ecological, socio-cultural, and business requirements for sustainable wild collection. FairWild certification is another way that we and you can know we are dealing with legally, ethically, and sustainably harvested products that are fair traded so the benefits are felt by everyone involved, including the local communities harvesting the wild plants.
As we find ourselves fully "back" from the distrubances of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are refocusing on our internal sustainability efforts and will be sharing information about those efforts on a more regular basis.
And last but not least, we will be sharing more of the free educational content you loved this year. Each week, you will find new free resources, recipes, and podcasts to further you along your herbal journey. Is there anything you want to see more of? Let us know in the comments below!
Topics: Inside Mountain Rose Herbs, Sustainability, Herbalism, Green Living
Heidi is an award winning freelance writer with a passion for urban homesteading. She has been honored to receive a number of literary prizes including the esteemed Pushcart Prize and an Individual Artists Award in Creative Writing from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is proud to have earned a certificate of completion for the Herbal Medicine Making Course at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. When she isn’t working in the garden, cleaning the henhouse, preserving food, crafting herbal formulations, or writing and editing content for really fantastic small businesses, you’ll likely find her with her nose in a book.
2023 was quite a year! While we worked hard to ensure access to pure, organic ingredients to support health and wellness, the Mountain Rose Herbs team also completed some exciting goals. As we reflect on the last year, we want to share our most notable accomplishments and extend our gratitude to you. We could not have accomplished these things without your incredible support. Here are some of our favorite initiatives from 2023 and a peek at what’s coming up in 2024.
Seed Stewardship Project
We officially launched our new Seed Stewardship Project at the 2023 International Herb Symposium. Working in partnership with United Plant Savers, we envision this project as a solution-oriented way to raise awareness about at-risk plants. We hope that by supplying free seeds to those able to plant them, we can join together to rebuild populations of botanicals that most need our help. When you place an order on our website, you can choose any one seed packet for free. We’ll ship your seeds with your order. If you place multiple orders of regularly priced items, you’ll receive one free seed packet every time!
We celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Mountain Rose Herbs Free Herbalism Project (FHP) in 2023! We created this project to give back to herbalists and our botanical community, and it has evolved into an ongoing series of in-person and Zoom educational events featuring visiting herbalists, how-to workshops, live music, and herbal tea to inspire community engagement and herbal learning free of charge. In honor of this momentous anniversary, we expanded FHP to include a webpage with new experiences, resources, and tools, including a digital content resource library and educational hub!
The Mountain Rose Herbs team published 107 blogs for our herbal community to enjoy and learn from last year. Topics included herbalism, natural hair care, DIY body care, culinary inspiration, sustainability happenings, and more!
These are the newly released blog posts you loved the most in 2023:
In 2023, our podcast hosts—Thomas Dick (Executive Vice President of Mountain Rose Herbs) and Jiling Lin (acupuncturist, herbalist, and our very dear friend)— worked incredibly hard to publish about 50 podcasts with esteemed herbalists like Rosemary Gladstar, Margi Flint, Doug Elliot, jim mcdonald, Adriana Ayales, Mimi Hernandez, Kiva Rose, Rising Appalachia, Christopher Hobbs, and many more. You can listen to all the 2023 episodes on our Herbal Radio webpage.
We created Grants 4 Plants in 2018 to help change-makers who share our values of caring for people while protecting our planet. Every year, we give four $4,000 grants to grassroots organizers, small businesses, herbalists, and nonprofit organizations that give back to their communities. In 2023, we received over 100 applications! The winning projects work to improve accessibility to herbalism and education, teach land management and self-sustainability, address issues of food insecurity, and advocate for the health of mothers and babies.
Our commitment to the best care and cultivation standards includes the hardworking people who grow our herbs and spices, so we maintain comprehensive Fair for Life and For Life certifications. These raise the bar on traditional fair trade certifications by applying fair-for-all principles that ensure human rights and equitable working conditions at every stage in the supply chain. We are proud to report that, in our 2023 audit, we received our highest score to date! More on this coming soon.
Each year, Mountain Rose Herbs offers a free publication chock full of inspirational articles, educational resources, recipes, and our product list. In 2023, we tried a new format, which highlighted our botanical offerings by their attributes and applications rather than in a list format. We included more infographics and visual representations of plants to help our incredible community further their education in a way that spoke to them. Our customers enjoyed this new style and we hope to bring more of that into the new year.
Over the years, many people have wondered when we were going to write a book. We are pleased to say that we did it! We took 30+ years of herbal living and crafting expertise and created our first book, The Mountain Rose Herbs Book of Natural Body Care, published in December 2023 by Timber Press. This book features 68 step-by-step recipes including botanical hair, facial, and lip care; formulations for glowing skin; support for hardworking hands and feet; shower and bath enhancements; and herbal remedies for common ailments. We're so excited for you to see it!
In 2023, we launched some exciting (and long-awaited) products. We added a new bagged organic tea line to satisfy those who want tea on the go or who don't like to fuss with loose leaf. Mountain Rose Herbs' tea sampler sets offer a taste of several flavors so you can discover new favorites without committing to a full size tin. We launched the premium tea line with the artisanal tea drinker and collector in mind.
We also started carrying some new ingredients, including locally sourced organic bee balm, small batches of organic butterfly pea flowers, and our own organic apple cider vinegar made from whole Washington-grown apples.
Our retail store, Mountain Rose Herbs Mercantile, turned seven in 2023! We decided this was the perfect occasion to launch into a remodel and much-needed expansion so we could offer more bulk organic herbs, DIY supplies, and other herbalism essentials. We hosted a 7th Anniversary & Expansion Party on November 3, 2023, which was one for the books!
We are always looking for ways to prioritize our team’s health and wellbeing. We offer alternative commute incentives, paid volunteer time, the EarthShare Giving Back Program, and more. In 2023, we raised the bar even further. We brought in a monthly ergonomic healthcare expert to help our employees keep their bodies pain-free while working. We hosted an epic annual Wellness Fair, offering wellness-oriented information and services, as well as free massages, a catered lunch and drinks, yard games, and tricycle obstacle course races for a day of education and fun. And... drum roll... our biggest news from 2023 is that we achieved our long-term goal of covering 100% of health insurance premiums for our staff! We are pleased to say that our team voted us into the top 25 of the 100 Best Green Companies to Work for in Oregon for the second year in a row.
Supporting our community through financial contributions, in-kind donations, and volunteer hours is a core part of our company culture. Since botanicals are our passion, we give in ways that care for the plants: investing in clean water and healthy soil. In 2023, we focused our giving on local community organizations like Cascadia Wildlands, Beyond Toxics, Friends of Trees, Cascades Raptor Center, and Oregon Wild because we have seen the work they do here in our community over many years, and we know they share our values and goals and act on them in tangible ways.
As you can see, 2023 was a busy year here at Mountain Rose Herbs, and we have even loftier goals for 2024. We will of course continue the programs we started and improved in 2023, and we will be launching a few new ones. This is only a small sneak peek of what's ahead, so please stay tuned for more!
One of our 2024 initiatives is to develop more domestic farm partnerships, particularly with farm partners investing in organic, regenerative farming to support our nation’s soil health and a healthy food supply. You’ll begin to see more domestically sourced Regenerative Organic Certified offerings coming soon!
We are also committing to carrying FairWild-certified offerings in 2024. The FairWild Standard has seven principles and twenty-four criteria addressing three themes: the ecological, socio-cultural, and business requirements for sustainable wild collection. FairWild certification is another way that we and you can know we are dealing with legally, ethically, and sustainably harvested products that are fair traded so the benefits are felt by everyone involved, including the local communities harvesting the wild plants.
As we find ourselves fully "back" from the distrubances of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are refocusing on our internal sustainability efforts and will be sharing information about those efforts on a more regular basis.
And last but not least, we will be sharing more of the free educational content you loved this year. Each week, you will find new free resources, recipes, and podcasts to further you along your herbal journey. Is there anything you want to see more of? Let us know in the comments below!
Topics: Inside Mountain Rose Herbs, Sustainability, Herbalism, Green Living
Heidi is an award winning freelance writer with a passion for urban homesteading. She has been honored to receive a number of literary prizes including the esteemed Pushcart Prize and an Individual Artists Award in Creative Writing from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is proud to have earned a certificate of completion for the Herbal Medicine Making Course at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. When she isn’t working in the garden, cleaning the henhouse, preserving food, crafting herbal formulations, or writing and editing content for really fantastic small businesses, you’ll likely find her with her nose in a book.
