Guidelines for Good Agricultural and Collection Practice for Sambucus nigra Flowers and Berries as Active Ingredients in Traditional Herbal Medicine and Dietary Supplements

This paper addresses European elderberry (Sambucus nigra) cultural and collection practices with the aim to improve flower and berry quality and consistency in accordance with the requirements for producers of dietary supplements and medicine. The establishment of high standards and adoption of Good Agricultural and Collection Practice (GACP) are essential to the expansion of these markets. The concept of good manufacturing practice for the production, processing, packaging and storage of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) also applies to medicinal plants/herbal substances. The production and primary processing of the medicinal plant/herbal substance have a direct influence on the quality of the API of elder herbal preparations. These processes include extraction, distillation, expression, fractionation, purification, concentration, or fermentation of comminuted or powdered herbal substances, tinctures, extracts, essential oils, expressed juices and processed exudates. Considering the inherent complexity of medicinal plants/herbal substances collected from wild populations and the limited access to analytical techniques used to chemically or biologically characterize them, a standardized quality assurance system for the collection and/or cultivation, harvest and primary processing is required in order to ensure consistent quality. A detailed GACP protocol for elder flower collection and processing was developed and successfully implemented with a group of Romanian wild-crafters as a model. Results of this project, along with an outline of such Good Agricultural and Collection Practices appropriate to elderberry are provided in this paper.