Penzance has its first new Apothecary in Penwith for 85 years! Helping the community on a journey to a more balanced and natural way of living.

Apothecary Forager, aka Ruth Weaver, is our latest Gold Business Champion and Sustainable PZ hub member.

Medical Herbalist Ruth has a wealth of experience, originally founding the business back in 2012. She now offers consultations, workshops, events and more from the new public facing healthcare space, which opened in December.

Six months on … what is it really like to run an apothecary with a nature based, restorative ethos? We caught up with Ruth to find out more.

Sourcing herbs ethically

The growing popularity of herbal supplements, particularly since the Covid pandemic, has brought both opportunities and challenges. As people look to build their health resilience, not just treat symptoms, there’s a growing pressure on the industry to source more plants than ever.

“And then you imagine, where do these herbs come from?” Ruth says. “How are they sourced? Who harvests them, and how well are they grown? Are they being consciously collected in a way that respects the fact that these plants quite often are wild crafted, so taken from the wild and all the ecosystems that depend on those plants?”

Because many medicinal herbs are harvested from natural ecosystems, unsustainable harvesting practices can damage biodiversity and threaten vulnerable species. In fact, Ruth says one in seven medicinal plants are now endangered.

The key is simple. “We must realise that healing our bodies is not different from healing the planet,” she says.

That’s why, where possible, Ruth sources herbs from organic growers and suppliers who prioritise environmental stewardship, particularly those part of the FairWild certification system, which promotes ethical harvesting and cultivation practices while protecting wild plant populations and the communities who depend on them.

What’s more, herbs grown in this way are often of higher medicinal quality too, producing richer concentrations of beneficial compounds.

Ruth also notes that while she enjoys foraging locally, due to living in a small community, she’s also thoughtful about where she does it and how often she does it to ensure minimal impact on local biodiversity and wildlife.

A different vision of community healthcare

As interest grows, Ruth is also looking to the future of what herbal medicine could look like in our wider communities.

“I believe that there should be a herbalist in every home and a medical herbalist or more medical herbalists in every community, every town,” she says. “People being empowered with the knowledge and how to support their own health at home using local native, really abundant medicinal plants that are just growing around us – in fact, we’re often weeding them out of our gardens!

“That, for me, is a really sustainable route because it sustains our health naturally, and it’s resilient in terms of being able to actually support ourselves away from the petrochemical industry of medicine.”

And while Ruth’s not telling people to come off of their medicines, she explains that for simple, basic home family conditions, herbal medicines really have a lot of capacity.

In this way, we can reduce dependence on resource-intensive systems by building local capacity, rather than relying entirely on distant institutions.

Reducing single-use plastics

Ruth’s ethical ethos is visible throughout the shop, too.

Glass bottles, glass jars and reusable containers have been chosen wherever possible, pretty much everywhere in fact. Suppliers are carefully selected based not only on the quality of their herbs but also on their packaging practices. She’s not scared to challenge them, either.

Where unavoidable, packaging materials are reused whenever they arrive, and any plastic film is collected and recycled.

“As a local business, it gives you the option to choose what you stock. So, you’re not part of a big chain or a supermarket where you’re being sent stuff. You can actually choose to lower your impact in terms of what you leave behind as well,” Ruth says.

Today, the business is continually moving towards suppliers who can provide products entirely in glass packaging, without compromising herb quality.

Local education and skill-building

Another key mission for Ruth is to inform and upskill the community – to help them understand the plants themselves and what they can do.

“There’s so many things that are good for you,” she says, “But I actually like giving people that experience of really engaging one plant and connecting with the sensory information.”

Over time, people can then build a ‘tool box’ of understanding, by joining workshops and learning more about each plant over time.

Ruth adds: “It’s actually empowering people with that health autonomy that basically they can actually enhance their health using things that grow around them that are abundant.”

It’s how she started, too, inspired by the skills she knows we will likely all need in the future. “This is not just giving people supplements, like turmeric for joints. We’re talking about real medicine that’s created and personalised for people, and I wanted to learn those skills.

“With climate change and food system pressures, I just thought that’s going to be relevant and that’s what we need.”

A healthier, self-powered Penzance

As we look for practical ways to live more ethically, in balance with the planet’s resources, and less dependent on systems that often feel beyond our control; businesses like Apothecary Forager are the alternatives we need in our back pocket. And those that will build resilience, future-proofing and innovating to ensure we are a thriving community for generations to come.

By teaching people how to understand, identify and use medicinal plants responsibly, and providing access in a sustainable way, Ruth is helping to rebuild skills that have connected humans to nature for thousands of years.

A small but powerful example of what our future could look like, where natural health is rooted in community.

To find out more about Apothecary Forager, follow the Instagram page, or head to the website here.