Medicinal and spice herbs count among the special cultivations, i.e. they need a particular high input of work and capital. Furthermore the farmer needs to know a lot about cultivation, harvest and after-harvest procedures (e.g. drying). In Germany, more than 100 species are cultivated in noteworthy extent. Important cultures are e.g. Camomile, Fennel, Peppermint and St. John's wort.

We have been purchasing an important part of our herbal drugs (dried plant and plant parts) from organic farming in Germany for many years. In future, we wish to ensure and extend our high ratio of organic herbs, which for the tea herbs is already more than 80%. Through our work in the field of cultivation and breeding, we are able to put at the farmers disposal appropriate seeds and seedlings (e. g. of the special Salus species) as well as the respective know-how, thus contributing to the provision of high quality raw materials.

Organic cultivation is important for Salus

The basic thought of organic agriculture means operating in harmony with nature. The farm is considered to be a "complete organism" with humans, animals, plants and the soil.

"An organism is an organized natural product in which every part is reciprocally end and means", Immanuel Kant

What organic farming can achieve:

• Protection of the natural resources soil, water and air through omission of chemical-synthetic pesticides and mineral fertilizers. Weed control is realised by means of mechanic and thermic procedures.
• Increase of biodiversity: on ecologically cultivated surfaces can be found 2 to 3 times more plant species than on conventionally cultivated surfaces. The diversity of insects and birds increases obviously.
• Protection of the (cultured) landscape: the varied crop rotation contributes to a diverse landscape. Hedges, hedgerows and humid biotopes are living spaces for beneficial insects.
• Healthy and high quality food: because of the slow, healthy growth in a living soil, an optimal quality of organic food is achieved.
• Exclusion of genetically modified food: the use of genetically modified seeds or auxiliary ingredients produced through genetic engineering, are forbidden for the processing of food in organic farming.
• Reduction of feeding stuff imports from developing countries: organic farming works with closed nutrient cycles. The animals are fed with feeding stuff the farm produces by itself.
• Support of adequate animal housing: organically working farms are obliged to house their animals in an adequate way (the possibility to run around outside, straw-bedded resting areas, natural light, good climate in the stable).
• Transparency in production: the European law for labelling and control of organically produced food shall protect the consumer against false labelling.
• Renunciation from industrial livestock farming: organic farmers are obliged to keep only a low number of animals per surface and thus impede an over-fertilization and deterioration of the groundwater or contamination of the air.
• Maintenance of working places in the farming sector: the organic farming sector has an up to 60% higher need of workers. The structures for processing and marketing are often regionally characterised.
• Organic farming is sustainable agriculture which maintains natural resources, preserves and has diverse positive effects on the environment.

Our Salus species

On the Salus testing fields cultivation starts, selection and breeding are realised. Cultivation is according to the EU-Eco-Regulation No. 834/2007.

Our aims for breeding can be classified into two groups:

Pharmaceutical aims: type and quantity of active principles or characteristic ingredients.
Cultivation aims: yield, habitat adaption, technical properties or tolerances against pathogens.
As breeding methods, mostly the positive and/or negative mass selection, set-up of inbreeding-lines and crossbreeds and backcross breeds are used. Great importance has the maintenance breeding and the propagation of seeds in order to stabilize the character and the properties of a breed.

Among the healing plants we use for our products, some are rare. Some species are even protected. So, in order to protect the wild habitats of the plants and at the same time assure a sustainable provision with raw materials, for many years we have been striving for the cultivation of wild plants. Arnica and Cowslip are two successful examples.

A cultivation start is more than just the planting of wild plants or seeds on the respective fields. It is a complicated process of adaption and selection of the plants the genetic potential of which allows optimal results at the respective location.

The Salus standards for production are much higher than the legal requirements. So, all products, i.e. not only the medicinal products but also foods, food supplements and teas are produced according to the strict pharmaceutical production rules and therefore are of excellent quality. We seek to realise all production steps by ourselves in order to have the best possible control on each single step, and to achieve the highest quality.

Principally, our products are treated most carefully during each production step in order to maintain all the valuable ingredients.

 

Laboratory-tested quality

Who counts on quality has to be prepared to check the own work on a regular basis. Therefore, Salus has created an extensive quality assurance system, every product has to pass.

The Salus own laboratory uses most modern methods of analysis for quality control of raw materials and products. It guarantees that the active ingredient contents required by the European Pharmacopoeia are met for all medicinal products of the company. Every product batch no matter whether food or medicinal product is extensively tested, partly even far beyond the legal requirements.

"Quality is the most important thing. We purchase only the best herbs and raw materials one can get, so we will be always on top", says Otto Greither, Salus managing director. "Therefore, we will continue to invest in our own research, so we can analyse everything, no matter whether cultivated by ourselves or from wild collection: it has to be analysed in the laboratory."

At Salus a team of scientists and laboratory technicians works on the market authorisations and quality controls. "The scope of analyses has changed by far during the past years", states Dr. Hagen Albert. The head of the scientific department points out that the extent of the analyses per year has increased between 2010 and 2015 from 7.000 to 11.000. "We have to have a much closer look on the samples", he explains. Environmental toxins as mycotoxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or pyrrolizidine alkaloids have come more and more into the focus of the quality assurers.

Controlled from the raw material to the finished product

The scientific department already takes part in the selection of suppliers and raw materials. The quality control during production is realised in five steps:

 

At one with nature

The human being is part of nature. If we hurt nature, we hurt ourselves. The very own interest of Salus is therefore to avoid negative effects of the products to the environment, or – if this is not possible – to keep them as low as possible.

The Salus group set itself 13 environmental guidelines, to which all Salus employees commit. Moreover, we introduced a comprehensive environmental management system (EMAS) comprising all company areas – from purchasing to production and shipment of the products. Salus has been participating in this eco-audit since 1996 as first company in the health food sector and was even able to improve its high environment standards. EMAS is more than a management system, because it is performance oriented. The company should improve beyond the legal requirements regarding environmental issues. Therefore concrete aims and measures are stipulated in a so-called environment programme and the implementation is controlled.

Every three years we publish an environment report indicating all actions and data regarding the environment and our ecobalance:

Being a role model regarding environmental protection, Salus joined the "Climate Protection and Energy Efficiency Group of the German Economy e.V." in 2014. Salus is now one of the 28 first companies in Germany which were welcomed as members by experts of the German ministry of the environment, German ministry of economy and the association of the German chambers of industry and commerce.

In 2000 Salus was one of the first subscribers of the project "Medicine and endangered species conservation" of the foundation World Wildlife Fund WWF. The purpose of the project is to take only that many wild growing healing plants from the soil that does not endanger their existence. In 2003 the WWF together with the magazine Capital awarded Otto Greither with the title "eco-manager of the year". In 1999 our environmental officer and technical factory director Thomas Günther was awarded the environment prize by the Bundesdeutscher Arbeitskreis für Umweltbewusstes Management - B.A.U.M. (German environmental management association), honouring his achievements for preventive environmental protection in the company group.

The environmental guidelines of the SALUS group

Since its foundation the Salus group is dedicated to health and well-being. The preservation and careful use of our environment is to us the most important precondition. We therefore aim to manage our products and their production and control in a process of continuous improvement, so that environmental harm can be avoided or minimized as much as possible.

To meet our ecological responsibilities we undertake to observe the following environmental guidelines.

• We aim to source a continuously growing and as large a percentage as possible of our residue-checked raw materials from organic farming, to promote economic activity in harmony with nature on a global level.
• Honest environmental protection is only achievable when the whole team is involved and motivated. For this reason all employees should be as well-briefed and well-informed as possible, so that they can play an active role in the environment protection.
• With environment protection, problems have to be tackled at the root. Consequently, we test each and every new product, procedure and new activity in advance in order to assess the environmental impact.
• Our interaction with the environment is constantly monitored, documented and analysed for weaknesses, so that we can ecologically optimise our operating processes with the resources available to us.
• We commit ourselves to comply with legal requirements. We are furthermore dedicated to working on the continued improvement of the company environment protection policies and so we are open to any new ideas or changes concerning the environment.
• We encourage all our employees to play an active role in improving the company's environment protection. Suggestions for improvement are positively accepted and rewarded. We also encourage our customers to critically appraise us and our products and to pass on any suggestion for improvement.
• We constantly work on reducing our consumption of raw materials, particularly in terms of water, energy, packaging and transport.
• We pay particular attention to the use of auxiliaries (e.g. detergents and disinfectants, lubricants) to ensure that they are as environmentally friendly as possible, and that they are disposed of in a way that is not harmful to the environment.
• We give preference to suppliers and companies that pay as much attention to environment protection as we do, and we involve them in our environment protection activities.
• We have set up a fault management system to avoid environmental pollution and to ensure that people are not harmed in the event of an accident.
• We systematically check to ensure that the aims we set are met, and adjust these aims to the latest findings.
• We are prepared to have an open dialogue with the public about the environmental impact of our business, and we would also like to involve the authorities in this.

Climate-Protection Company

Setting an example: in 2014 Salus became a member of the "Climate Protection and Energy Efficiency Group of the German Economy" ("Klimaschutz- und Energieeffizienzgruppe der Deutschen Wirtschaft e.V.").

Only those companies form part of the Excellence Initiative, which set examples regarding climate protection and energy efficiency. As cross-industrial association of German companies of all sizes, Climate-Protection Companies show examples to optimize the use of energy and for climate protection. As role models in the ambit of climate protection they reduce their CO2 emissions and demonstrate: climate protection pays off.

The members of the association are especially committed companies, which are scrutinized and recommended by a board of experts, e.g. the German ministry of the environment, German ministry of economy and the association of the German chambers of industry and commerce.
As "green company" Salus fits in well into this circle, as environment and climate protection have been playing an important role since the foundation of the company in 1916. We have been awarded because many climate protection measures have already been implemented.

 

EMAS

The Salus group introduced a comprehensive eco-management system comprising all sectors – from purchasing and production to dispatch.

The eco-management system EMAS is built on the requirements of the EC regulation No. 1221/2009 (EMAS III, Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) and the international norm DIN EN ISO 14001 and is regularly controlled by an independent government-approved environmental verifier (Envizert).

EMAS is more than a mere management system; EMAS is performance oriented: the company should improve beyond the environmental law requirements. Therefore a so-called environment programme stipulates concrete targets and measures, and the implementation is controlled.
Every three years we publish an environmental report, indicating all actions and data regarding the environment, e.g. use of resources and energy, emissions and waste.

Salus has been taking part in the eco-audit since 1996, as the first company in the German health food sector, and could therefore further improve its high standards in environmental protection.

- EMAS Certificate 2021

 

Biodiversity – variety of life

Literally translated biodiversity means "variety of life". The preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is an important basis for human well-being. However, biodiversity is endangered on a global scale.

As manufacturer of natural medicinal products Salus depends on biodiversity and intact eco-systems. We see our responsibilities from the biodiversity convention held in Rio de Janeiro:

1. preservation of biodiversity
2. sustainable use of biodiversity
3. balanced and fair distribution of opportunities arising from the use of biodiversity, particularly genetic resources

Preservation of biodiversity at Salus

Alluvial forest biotope

Very close to the Salus company premises in Bruckmühl, Upper Bavaria, at the banks of the idyllic river Mangfall, there is the Salus alluvial forest biotope. Salus owner Otto Greither bought the alluvial forest area in 1995 and made it his task to maintain one of the last natural alluvial forests in the region for posterity.

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Cultivation start of wild plants

Among the healing plants we use for our products, some are rare. Some species are even protected. So, in order to protect the wild habitats of the plants and at the same time assure a sustainable provision with raw materials, for many years we have been striving for the cultivation of wild plants.

LEARN MORE

Salus alluvial forest biotope

Very close to the Salus company premises in Bruckmühl, Upper Bavaria, at the banks of the idyllic river Mangfall, there is the Salus alluvial forest biotope.

Salus owner Otto Greither bought the alluvial forest area in 1995 and made it his task to maintain one of the last natural alluvial forests in the region for posterity. A varied nature trail leads through the forest with its numerous animal and plant species. Off the trails, nature is mostly undisturbed and represents a safe haven for animals and plants. Fallen trees are left on the ground and become an important habitat for insects and mushrooms.

In order to take care of the 6000 visitors per year, a FÖJ position (voluntary ecological year) was especially created. Close to the biotope there is the nature museum of the community. Otto Greither donated the building, which was constructed from wood in harmony with nature, to the community Bruckmühl.

 

Commitment

Being a medium-size company we are conscious of our social responsibility. We understand that a sustainable orientation of the company is only possible if the focus lies not only on economic and ecologic aspects but also on socially responsible action.

 

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