The Flora way

It’s not every natural health company that can offer “products and services for the purification and upliftment of the body and spirit,” but Flora isn’t just any natural health company.

From the beginning, Flora has followed a guiding principle of whole health that sets it apart from the competition. Its roots extend back to Germany’s Salus-Haus (“Health House”), founded in 1916 by Dr. Otto Greither, grandfather of Flora’s current owner Thomas Greither. Today, Salus-Haus remains an internationally respected herbal company, and Flora continues the Greither family’s legacy of integrity and passion for developing quality, pure, organic health products.

Flora started out distributing and marketing European herbal remedies in the 1960s, at a time when alternative therapies and remedies were virtually unknown in Canada. From the beginning, the company followed a guiding principle of whole health that began with the planting of seeds and continued through harvesting, formulating, manufacturing, and even distributing.

“We have always worked hard to find and partner with suppliers who follow fair, ethical, sustainable practices,” explains Ken Cowan, Canadian National Marketing Manager for Flora. “For example, in the production of Flor·Essence®, we use only herbs grown at our own farm or purchased from select farmers who do their own seed collecting, growing, harvesting, and drying.” This is a common practice for Flora and is a goal for everything they manufacture.

All of Flora’s products are manufactured in accordance with Good Manufacturing Practices standards, and are guaranteed to be top quality and free of unnecessary chemicals or synthetic ingredients. Vegetarian capsules are used whenever possible, and products are packaged in recyclable amber glass bottles instead of plastic.

Flora’s dedication to ethical, sustainable, natural practices has won the company considerable acclaim and success. Today, Flora’s Canadian head office and manufacturing facility share an 80,000 square-foot space in Burnaby, British Columbia, and in 1998, the company’s US office and production centre in Lynden, Washington, expanded to 55,000 square feet.

Although Flora started out importing and distributing herbal tinctures, teas, and other remedies, the company continues to experiment with formulations that reflect the changing needs and sensibilities of modern consumers. Its product line has expanded to include herbal supplements, detoxifying formulas, and cold-pressed oils with essential fatty acids.

“A major development in the last few years has been functional foods,” notes Cowan. “We’ve come from tinctures and herbal formulas to developing products that go beyond what’s offered in the ‘pill shops’ and integrating natural health into the foods people eat every day.”

Flora’s latest offering in the realm of functional foods is Bija Udo’s Choice® Omega Bars. The bars are made from organic chocolate, with a truffle-like filling infused with EFAs from sesame, sunflower, and flaxseeds.

“We approached fair trade chocolate companies about infusing chocolate with EFAs, and they told us, ‘You can’t do that,? notes Cowan.

“Well, that’s the Flora way–do what can’t be done.”

For more information about Flora and its products, visit www.florahealth.com.