Sourced on request. Other natural materials

How a request works

1. You name the material

   The botanical name if you have it, the local or trade name, the form, the quantity and what it is for. A reference sample or a photograph helps more than a description.

2. We check at origin

   Who collects or trades it, in what form, in what season, and whether anything restricts its export.

3. We report back

   What we found, a sample if there is one, and whether we will take it on. If we cannot identify a material with confidence, we say so and stop there.

4. It becomes a lot

   From here it runs like any listed product: written specification, sample of the lot, contract, lot number, documents, shipment. See how it works.

What a request might name

These are not products we list. They are examples of materials found in the region, with the first question we would need to settle.

Hagar resin

Hagar is the Somali name the Flora of Somalia records for Commiphora kataf.¹ Regulatory lists name opoponax under Commiphora erythraea, which Kew now treats as a synonym of that tree, so the two are easily confused.^2,3 First question: is it hagar you want, or opoponax?

Other frankincense species

Sanaag has a third species, Boswellia occulta, that was named only in 2019,⁴ and we know of no agreed botanical meaning for “black frankincense”. First question: which species, and how will it be identified?

Talha gum

Gum from Acacia seyal, which the JECFA definition of gum arabic covers alongside Acacia senegal, and which is told apart from it by optical rotation.⁵ First question: is it collected in commercial quantity where we buy? That has to be checked before we can say.

Leaves, powders and other botanicals

First question: the botanical name. Where a species has not been identified by a botanist or a laboratory, the documents say so.

What we will not source

• Charcoal. The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada each ban the import of charcoal from Somalia under their sanctions regimes.^6,7,8
• Anything listed under CITES.
• A material nobody can put a botanical name to.
• A material sold on a health claim. We supply raw materials and make no therapeutic claims for them.

Questions

Is there a minimum quantity?

No fixed figure. A search costs effort, so tell us the volume you have in mind and whether the need will recur.

Can you send a sample before we commit?

Yes, when the material can be found. As with listed products, the sample is drawn from the lot we would supply.

How is a one-off request priced?

We quote once we have found the material and know what it costs to buy, sort and ship.

We already have a supplier in the region. Can you work with them?

That is what origin operations is for: work at origin to your brief, where we act for you and are not the seller.