A Sussex food company has won a green seal of approval for its garlic, ginseng, ginger and ginko.

G&G Food is the only company supplying packaged dried herbs in the UK to be recognised by the Soil Association.

The company, founded 34 years ago by Jeremy Stephens, its current managing director, has a staff of 60 and a UK-wide customer list.

The Soil Association is the body dedicated to research into organic farming and the promotion of organic products. Its symbol on food certifies that it has been grown in accordance with organic principles and adheres to strict requirements for processing.

Director of manufacturing Kathy Windle said quality and professionalism were the keynotes at the East Grinstead company.

She said: "Without them, we could never have gained the Soil Association's certification as an organic producer. Although our organic herbs are obtained from sources certified as organic, our own production processes had to be approved by the association as free from any possible contamination."

Community relations manager John Prigent said G&G and the Soil Association had similar aims.

"The association is devoted to ensuring the purity of any products sold as organic - that is farmed without artificial fertil-izers and pesticides.

"Organic is a term defined by law and the production and processing of organic food is governed by strict rules. Although the herbs we buy as organic have already been certified, we carry out our own checks on them to make doubly sure they meet the standards we insist upon.

"We take the greatest of care in storage, processing and putting the herbs into capsules."

Encapsulation is carried out by skilled operators on complex machinery. One of the Soil Associations requirements was to vet the standards of cleanliness for that machinery.

Mr Prigent said: "Its requirements mean the machinery has to be thoroughly cleaned between batches of different herbs. And I'm proud to say every organic herb capsule sold in the UK has been made in East Grinstead."

The company can manufacture up to eight million capsules a week, which are packed in jars of 50 and 100. Regular shipments are sent to customers in the EU, the United States, Japan, Russia and South America.

G&G has also received a commendation from the charity Kenya Project Society for the contributions it made towards a health education scheme in the African country last year.