From Wild Slopes to Traceable Supply: What FairWild Certification Means for Annapurna Aroma and the People Who Harvest for It

Jatamansi, Himalayan Juniper, Himalayan Wintergreen and Valerian are among the most distinctive botanicals a buyer can source. But for Annapurna Aroma Company, a Nepali company that achieved FairWild certification for all four in 2026, the real story is what certification has changed for the people who collect them.

Securing the resource and the livelihood

In wild harvesting, the plant and the person who collects it depend on each other. If the resource is overharvested, the livelihood goes with it. For Annapurna Aroma, certification has meant a closer working relationship with collectors and more attention to how harvesting is done.

"FairWild has helped us work more closely with collectors and pay greater attention to how wild plants are harvested, so the resources they depend on can remain available for the future."
- Annapurna Aroma Company

Seeing the people behind the plant

Annapurna Aroma describes the shift as one of perspective, as well as practice.

"FairWild has helped us look beyond the plant itself and recognise the people and communities behind wild collection, and the importance of keeping both the resource and their livelihoods secure over the long term."
- Annapurna Aroma Company

For harvester community members, that shift has been very practical.

"Before working with Annapurna Aroma, we did not know that Wintergreen could be a source of income. Now, many of us earn by harvesting the plants and working at the distillation unit. We have also learned to harvest carefully so that the plants remain available for us in the future."
- Buddha Gole, harvester community member

His words show what Wild Wisdom looks like on the ground. Local knowledge of a plant has become a source of income, and that income now rests on harvesting practices that protect the resource for the next generations.

What it means for the business

For Annapurna Aroma, certification is also a commercial advantage.

"It has strengthened our traceability and helped us build greater trust with customers who want responsibly sourced wild ingredients and [to] know where their materials come from."
- Annapurna Aroma Company

For sourcing teams, this is the case for certification in a single sentence. Buyers are increasingly expected to show where a wild ingredient comes from and how the people behind it are treated. Independently audited traceability, built into the supply chain from the start, is far easier than reconstructing evidence after the fact.

Part of a growing pipeline: SHIFT

Annapurna Aroma's certification sits within the SHIFT (Scaling conservation of Himalayan plants and fungi through sustainable trade) programme. SHIFT is a UK government supported project that works across ten districts and eleven target species, including jatamansi. It aims to train at least 200 local resource persons, half of them women, who will in turn train more than 20,000 harvesters in sustainable resource management. to connect Nepal's wild botanicals exporters with innovative markets abroad. Annapurna Aroma joins Himalayan Bio Trade, Nepal's first FairWild-certified company, in widening the pool of verified Himalayan supply.

The takeaway: a certified supply chain is built from relationships, such as a company that works more closely with collectors and a community that has found a secure income from plants it already knew. That is what FairWild Week is about.

Help us keep it going

Programmes like SHIFT let FairWild work with the evidence and rigour that wild harvesting supply chains need, from resource assessments in the field to the training that puts them into practice. Alongside our market-facing services, we put that effort into three areas: supporting operators on their route to certification, research and standards, and community development.

But we can't do this work alone. Friends of FairWild is a new community of people and organisations who believe biodiversity, livelihoods and responsible business can thrive together. Contributions go into a fund supporting those three areas, so more harvesters, operators and landscapes can benefit from stories like Annapurna Aroma's.

Representing a business or NGO? Contributions are scaled to your size, and you can choose to direct your support to the Operator Support Fund. Get in touch at business@fairwild.org.

SHIFT is Funded by the UK Government through the Darwin Initiative